his jaw tightens almost immediately at her question, because he hears everything buried beneath it. every missed date. every unanswered text. every night she sat alone waiting for him to show up, wondering whether she was competing with a part of his life she couldn’t see. his gaze drops briefly to the floor between them before lifting back to hers, and perhaps for the first time all evening, there’s no resistance left in him. no carefully curated half-truths. only honesty. “ sometimes, ” the admission settles heavily between them, “ sometimes i’m fighting, sometimes i’m running it, sometimes somebody gets hurt and i have to deal with it before it turns into a bigger problem. ” his thumb stills against her cheek as he takes in the disappointment etched across her features — and fuck, he’d rather take a punch. because he knows exactly what she’s seeing, that familiar pattern of a man disappearing into a world she doesn’t belong to, in the same way her father had. she’d asked earlier if he heard her and he did. he heard every complaint, argument, all the times she told him she felt abandoned without using the word itself ; he’d just convinced himself he was keeping her safe. his gaze hardens faintly when she asks him how illegal it is and he doesn’t immediately answer. he studies the trembling uncertainty while she tries to hide the fear, before ultimately confessing, “ it’s illegal enough that if it gets shut down, i’m the one taking the fall. ” his words aren’t embellished, nothing to soften the edges. “ i could get arrested. ” he steps closer, studying her face, trying to pull her out before her mind spirals. “ you’re scared that one day i’m gonna disappear into it and never come back, ” as though he’s spelling out the sentiment he can see in her eyes that she refuses to say out loud, cradling her jaw with infuriating tenderness in quiet reassurance that he won’t let history repeat itself.
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