Chapter 9: Unfinished Business
The adrenaline from the call had long since curdled into a deep, bone-level fatigue. It was the kind that made fluorescent lights buzz too loud and turned her own hands into unfamiliar objects—useless, empty things. The multi-vehicle on the bridge had been worse than the dispatch suggested. One fatality, a DOA, a kid with a compound fracture screaming for his mother, the metallic smell of blood and gasoline mixing with the cold river air.
Lilah had operated on autopilot, her training a script she could run while her mind floated somewhere else, in a loft full of the scent of turpentine and the memory of hands on her skin.
She pushed open the heavy door to Jace’s studio, the squeak of the hinges loud in the now-quiet building. The scene that greeted her was not the one she’d left.
He was shirtless, his back to her, a constellation of faded paint smears and fine golden hairs across his shoulders. He wasn’t at the easel. He was working on a large canvas propped directly on the floor, attacking it with a wide, stiff-bristled brush. The rhythmic, aggressive scrape of bristles on linen filled the space. The painting was no longer a sketch. It was a storm of color and motion. Her form, recognizably hers with its strong lines and wild curls, was rendered in urgent, slashing strokes of ochre and umber and visceral crimson. It wasn’t a portrait of her sitting still. It was a portrait of sensation—of arched back, of head thrown back against a wall, of fingers tangled in blond hair. It was the moment before the pager had sounded, frozen in violent, wanton color.
He didn’t turn, not right away. He finished a brutal sweep of crimson along the imagined curve of her hip, then finally stilled, the brush hovering. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
“You’re back,” he said, his voice rough, unused.
“I said I would be.” Her own voice sounded foreign, hoarse from yelling instructions over sirens.
He slowly lowered the brush onto an old newspaper swimming with color. Then he turned.
The hunger she’d seen earlier was still there, but it had been tempered, transformed by the hours of solitary work. It was sharper now, more focused, edged with a frustration that made the air between them feel charged and brittle. Charcoal dust smudged his jawline. His eyes tracked over her—her scrubs, stained with non-descript smears, her face pale under the relentless single bulb.
“You left me unfinished, sweetheart,” he murmured, taking a step toward her. The paint on his hands was still wet, gleaming in the low light. “Time to fix that.”
He crossed the room, and she didn’t move. She was too tired to summon a defense, too hollowed out from the night’s losses to protest the raw need she saw in him. It was a different kind of void, one he seemed determined to fill.
He stopped just inches away, not touching her. He studied her face, reading the exhaustion there. “Bad?” he asked, the single word holding space for everything she wouldn’t say.
She nodded, a tight, minuscule movement. Her throat ached.
His expression softened, just for a second. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth. “He called. Nathan. About an hour ago. From his hotel.”
The news landed with a dull thud in her gut. “What did he say?”
“Asked if you were here. I said you’d been here, but you’d run out on a call.” Jace’s mouth quirked. “He heard the painting in my voice. I didn’t have to say a thing.”
Lilah closed her eyes. The complexity of it was a weight she couldn’t bear. Nathan’s quiet possession from a thousand miles away. Jace’s fiery, immediate claim here in this room. The image of the deceased, a man about her father’s age, being zipped into a black bag on the rain-slicked asphalt.
A tear escaped, tracking through the grime on her cheek. She didn’t even know who it was for.
“Hey,” Jace said, his voice dropping. The roughness was gone, replaced by something closer to concern. He didn’t wipe the tear away with his paint-stained hand. He just looked at it, as if it were a new element he needed to understand. “Lilah.”
“I just need…” she started, but she didn’t know how to finish. I need to not think. I need to feel something that isn’t cold or sad or complicated.
He understood. He always seemed to. He closed the final distance, his body aligning with hers, but gently this time. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into the solid warmth of his chest. She stiffened for a moment, then sank into him, her forehead resting against his collarbone. He smelled of linseed oil and sweat and the cheap sage soap he used. It was nothing like the antiseptic sharpness of the ER.
They stood like that for a long while, his chin resting on top of her head. The frantic energy that had crackled in the room earlier had dissipated, replaced by a weary, shared quiet. Her pager, still clipped to her waist, gave a solitary, dying-battery beep.
“Your gear’s buzzing,” he mumbled into her hair.
“It’s just the low battery alert. Ignore it.”
He laughed, a soft puff of air. “You know, for someone who runs toward emergencies, you’re pretty good at ignoring things.”
She tipped her head back to look at him. “Says the guy who painted a version of me that looks like it’s about to spontaneously combust.”
“It’s an honest interpretation.” He traced the line of her jaw with a clean knuckle, avoiding the paint on his fingers. “This is what you do to me. This…” He gestured vaguely at the furious canvas on the floor, then back at her. “…is in you. Under all the competence and the bravery and the taking-care-of-everyone-else. I just don’t bother pretending not to see it.”
His words slipped past her defenses, a key turning in a locked part of her heart. She didn’t answer with words. She rose onto her toes and found his mouth with hers.
This kiss was different. It wasn’t the frantic, clawing thing from against the wall. It was slower, deeper, a conversation. It tasted of the whiskey he’d been sipping and her own salt. His clean hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones, while her arms wound around his neck, holding on as if he were the only solid thing in a shifting world.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing unsteadily, he rested his forehead against hers. “Stay,” he said, simple and direct.
“Nathan…”
“Is not here,” Jace finished, his tone leaving no room for argument. “He knows where you are. He knows who you’re with. That was the point of his call.” He searched her eyes. “This doesn’t have to be a war, Lilah. It can just be… tonight.”
The temptation to simplify, to let the current pull her under, was immense. She looked past him at the painting—the wild, colorful version of herself, free of consequences and history. She thought of the silent, dark apartment downstairs that was only hers, full of echoes and unpacked boxes.
She thought of Nathan’s low, careful voice on the phone, asking if she was there. Knowing. Allowing.
She took Jace’s hand, lacing her fingers through his, ignoring the dried streaks of crimson and gold. “Just tonight,” she whispered, a promise to herself as much as to him.
A slow, real smile spread across his face, brighter than the bare bulb above them. He led her away from the doorway, away from the symbolic frenzy of the painting on the floor, toward the sagging futon in the shadowy corner. It was covered with a rumpled, paint-speckled sheet.
He pulled her down beside him, the old springs groaning in protest. The city lights bled through the dirty windows, painting shifting patterns on the floor. For the first time all day, Lilah stopped moving. She stopped thinking. She let the warm, solid reality of Jace beside her anchor her in the now, in this small, chaotic island of color and need, while the rest of the world, with all its complications and sorrows, receded into a distant, silent hum.
The silence between them was a living thing, thick with the unsaid and the almost-was. The industrial hum of the city through the open window felt like a current trying to pull her away from this. She turned her head on the rough fabric of the futon, finding his profile outlined against the dim glow.
Jace was already watching her, his eyes catching the faint light like shale. The playful charm was gone, stripped bare. What remained was a naked patience that felt more dangerous.
“What?” she whispered, the word scratching in her throat.
“Just looking.” His voice was low, sand against stone. “You’re here, but you’re not all here yet. Still thinking about the kid with the broken arm.”
He saw too much. It was unnerving. She swallowed, the memory of the boy’s screams a cold echo in her bones. “How do you do that?”
“You get a feel for negative space. The parts people leave empty.” He shifted onto his side, propping his head on his hand. A dried flake of crimson paint drifted from his hair onto the sheet. “You don’t have to talk about it. But you don’t have to carry it alone in here, either.”
He touched his own temple, then let his fingers drift down, skimming the air just above her cheekbone. He didn’t make contact. The anticipation was a physical ache.
She bridged the gap. Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his.
The first touch was soft, a question. He answered it with a sigh against her mouth, his hand finally coming to rest, warm and solid, on the side of her neck. His thumb traced the line of her jaw. It was slow, deliberate, a stark contrast to the frantic need from hours before. This was exploration. This was mapping.
She tasted the sharp, resiny ghost of turpentine on his lips, the deeper note of whiskey underneath. His skin smelled of sweat and the peculiar, clean scent of gesso. Her fingers found the taut muscles of his shoulder, tracing the ridges and plains, anchoring herself in his solidity. The distant, metallic memory of the ambulance bay, the chill of the night air on the bridge, it all dissolved into the warmth of his mouth on hers.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers, and a jolt went through her, bright and electric. It wasn’t just desire. It was recognition. Her body unfurled toward him, a plant seeking light. A low sound escaped him, and his other arm hooked around her waist, pulling her closer until their bodies were aligned on the narrow futon. The hard line of his erection pressed against her thigh through their clothes, a blunt, honest truth.
She broke the kiss, gasping for air, her forehead resting against his. Their breath mingled, fast and shallow.
“See?” he murmured, his voice ragged. “You’re here now.”