Chapter 27 · After Dust

"Leave it." Cade's hand closed over my wrist before I got two fingers on the broken glass.

"It's my floor." I pulled back. He didn't let go.

The picture frame he'd thrown twenty minutes ago was still in pieces by the couch. Maya's kindergarten photo stared up at us through a crack that ran straight across her front teeth. Neither of us had picked it up.

We'd both just stood there yelling instead, and now the yelling was over and the mess was still on the floor and his hand was still on my wrist, warm, too warm, his thumb pressed right over my pulse like he could feel it going.

"You'll cut yourself," he said.

"I've survived worse than a coffee table, Cade."

"Not what I meant." His voice dropped. Not soft. Rough, like it cost him something to say it at all.

I looked at him. Jaw tight, shirt still misbuttoned from where Maya had grabbed it an hour ago, wanting to be picked up, before all of this. Before Elise's post.