Chapter 52: Just the two of us

Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Just the two of us

Garrett woke up without immediately running through the usual list.

Nothing sitting at the front of his mind the second his eyes opened. Just the ordinary business of getting up, brushing his teeth, getting dressed, the same routine he’d followed on countless mornings before all of this had started piling up around him.

His life had gotten complicated lately. He knew that much without needing to spell it out to himself first thing in the morning. But complicated didn’t mean every single day had to feel that way, and this one, so far, didn’t.

School passed the same way most Thursdays did. Lectures, a couple of conversations with classmates he barely spoke to outside of group work, the usual walk between buildings that took longer than it should because someone always managed to block the doorway at the worst possible moment.

Daniel found him between classes, talking about some new game he wanted to try, barely pausing for Garrett to respond before moving on to the next topic entirely. Garrett let him talk, offering the occasional word, content to just let the day move at its own pace for once.

By the time his last class ended, nothing remarkable had happened. No warnings, no notifications, no unexpected run-ins with anyone he needed to think too hard about. Just an ordinary Thursday, quietly passing him by.

His phone buzzed on the walk home.

A text from Emiliana, short and to the point. Just a pinned location and nothing else.

The same park.

Garrett glanced at the message a second longer than necessary, then pocketed his phone and adjusted his route.

Emiliana was already on the bench when he got there, sitting with her legs tucked to one side, watching the path rather than her phone.

She looked up as he approached, something easing in her expression the moment she saw him. "You made it."

"Said I would."

He sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Neither of them rushed to fill the silence that followed. The park was quiet this time of evening, a few people walking dogs further down the path, the sound of traffic muted behind the trees.

"So," Emiliana said eventually, tilting her head toward him. "How have you actually been? Not the version you give everyone else."

"Busy," Garrett said. "Classes. Work. The usual."

"That’s still the everyone-else version."

He almost smiled at that. "It’s the true version, though."

She studied him for a moment, clearly not fully satisfied, but she let it go, choosing not to press further. Garrett gave her a little more anyway, small pieces of the last few days, enough to answer honestly without turning the conversation into something heavier than it needed to be.

Emiliana listened, occasionally asking something small, her attention fully on him the entire time.

"I’ve missed this," she said after a while, quieter now. "Just sitting somewhere with you. No plans, nowhere we have to be."

"We haven’t had much of it lately."

"No. We haven’t."

She shifted slightly, leaning into him, and Garrett let his arm settle around her without either of them making anything of it. It was easy, comfortable in a way most of his week hadn’t been. Her hand found his, their fingers settling together as the evening cooled around them.

They stayed like that for a while, quiet, the kind of silence that didn’t need filling.

Eventually, Emiliana’s fingers tightened slightly around his.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated, her gaze drifting out toward the path. "Brian’s still around. He keeps finding reasons to talk to me, show up where I am. I’ve told him no more times than I can count, and it’s still not sticking."

Garrett’s attention sharpened, though he kept it out of his expression. "Why not?"

"It’s complicated." She shook her head slightly, like she was deciding how much to actually say. "There’s someone behind him. Someone he’s answering to. I don’t fully understand it myself, but getting him to actually stop isn’t going to be as simple as just telling him no again."

She stopped there.

Garrett didn’t push.

There was clearly more to it, but Emiliana wasn’t ready to give him the rest.

"There’s something else, too," Emiliana said, her voice quieter now, more careful. "My father. He keeps arranging these dinners, these introductions. Always with someone from another family, someone with money, someone he thinks would be a good match." She let out a breath, something tired in it. "Being a Vane means everyone treats you like a piece to move around. Nobody actually asks what I want."

Garrett listened, letting her talk without interrupting.

He’d seen the obvious parts of being a Vane before. The money. The attention. The way people reacted when she walked into a room. He hadn’t really considered what came with the name when the doors were closed.

"That sounds exhausting," he said finally.

"It is."

He pulled her a little closer, and she let him, resting her head against his shoulder. The tension in her seemed to ease slightly now that she’d said it aloud.

Neither of them said anything else for a while.

The park stayed quiet around them, the evening settling in. For once, Garrett didn’t feel any need to fill the silence.

The silence held a while longer, comfortable, neither of them in any hurry to break it.

Garrett considered whether to bring it up at all. Part of him wanted to leave the evening exactly where it was, quiet, easy, untouched by anything sharper. But keeping it from her didn’t feel right.

"There’s something you should know," he said finally.

Emiliana lifted her head slightly, reading something in his tone before he’d even said the rest of it. "What is it?"

"Raymond sent three men after me yesterday." He kept his voice level, matter-of-fact, the same way he would have described anything else that happened to him. "Cornered me on my way home. Told me to stay away from you."

Her whole body went still against his.

"He did what?"

"Warned me off. Said if he saw us together again, it wouldn’t just be a warning next time."

Emiliana pulled back enough to look at him properly, and whatever softness had been in her expression a minute ago was gone now, replaced by something harder, sharper.

"He sent people to hurt you?..." It wasn’t a question. Her jaw had tightened, her eyes narrowing in a way that had nothing to do with fear. "...Because of me?!"

"Wasn’t your fault."

"That’s not the point." Her voice stayed controlled, but there was real anger underneath it now, cold and precise rather than loud. "He doesn’t get to decide who I spend time with. He’s not entitled to an opinion on it, let alone people to enforce one."

Garrett watched her for a moment, saying nothing, letting her get through it.

"I’ll deal with him," she said finally. "When I get home."

"You don’t have to do anything on my account."

"I’m not doing it on your account." She held his gaze, steady now, the anger settling into something more deliberate. "I’m doing it because he doesn’t get to send people after someone I care about and think there won’t be consequences."

Garrett didn’t argue with that. He didn’t know exactly what dealing with Raymond meant coming from her, or what kind of weight her name actually carried when she chose to use it. But he trusted that she knew, and he wasn’t about to make the moment bigger by asking for details she hadn’t offered.

"Alright," he said simply.

She exhaled slowly, some of the tension easing out of her shoulders, though not all of it. After a moment, she leaned back into him, resting against his side the way she had before, like she needed the contact to fully settle.

They sat like that for a while, the anger slowly fading into something quieter.

"I want you to come around more," Emiliana said eventually, her voice softer now, closer to where it had been before Raymond’s name entered the conversation. "We barely see each other anymore. Between everything going on, it feels like we’re always catching up instead of just... being together."

"Yeah," Garrett said. "I know."

"I don’t want it to keep being like that."

"It won’t."

She tilted her head up to look at him, something quietly hopeful in her expression, and he held her gaze for a moment before she settled back against him again.

Neither of them said much after that. The evening had cooled properly now, the park emptier than it had been when he arrived, but neither of them made any move to leave.

For a little while, it was just the two of them, sitting together, nothing pulling at either of them from outside this bench.

It felt, for the first time in longer than Garrett could remember, simple.