The whole of it was beyond pleasant to breathe in.
It was . . . home.
As they started off at a slow rate, it was the best walk of his life, the pair of them bumping hips and shuffling along—well, he was the one doing the shuffling, Jane was strong as ever as she led him down to the office.
There was still nothing in his mind as they entered the underground tunnel. Continuing along, their pace stayed at a stroll, like they were in a city park, on a sunny day in the fall, just another pair of lovers perfectly in tune with each other. From time to time, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. Just ’cuz he wanted to. And halfway to the Pit, she reached over and entwined her fingers through his dangling dagger hand.
“I want to feel like this forever,” he murmured.
“How’s that?”
“At peace.” He kissed her above her brows again. “And grateful.”
Unfortunately, this rare feeling of relaxation wasn’t going to last. As powerful as it was, it was also fragile, incapable of surviving the punches of the real world. He was going to get maybe twelve hours like this—no more than that, though. Sooner than later, the texts would come from the field, and the IT shit in the household would resume, and then other crap would fall on his head. Gradually, the tension would seep back in, tightening the nape of his neck, stiffening his spine, shortening his temper. And then later, much later, something big-ish would happen. Like Butch running into his old partner again, or Wrath wanting to engage something other than a civilian at the Audience House, or fuck all only knew what.
And then he would be where he had been.
But as for now . . .
Even the prospect of returning to his touchy normal was nothing but a figment floating off on the periphery, not anything he had to worry about at the moment, just something he accepted as inevitable, but wasn’t going to dwell on.
When they came to the door to go up to the Pit, Jane punched in the code. The short stack of steps was rough on him, and he needed the little balustrade as well as Jane’s steady hand. Not that his reliance on either bothered him. And then he was cresting the rise and stepping into the shallow hall that ran between the bedrooms.
His and Jane’s. Butch and Marissa’s.
“V?”
The male voice down in the living area was yet another balm to his soul.
Jane rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. “You go hang for a bit, I’m heading to bed.”
“You worked hard tonight.”
“So did you.”
They smiled for a while. Then they kissed again, and said I love you without speaking a word: All it took was the eye contact—and yup, V was totally looking forward to coming down to their bedroom and easing between the sheets to find his shellan’s warm body.
But first, his roommate.
Limping down to the open area in front of the carriage house, he supposed he wanted to check to make sure everything was cool. Not because Butch didn’t know what V liked—hell, the cop had dipped his toe in those waters just before Jane came into the picture. But because . . . well, because.
V found the former cop on the leather couch, a Lagavulin in one hand, the Roku remote in the other, the TV shimmering with blue light in front of him. Butch was angled forward, one foot still on the coffee table, as if he had been aimlessly flipping through channels in a recline and had just sat up.
“Hey?” the guy said as he looked over.
“Hey. So . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
Butch nodded. “Mm-hm.”
Just as V and Jane had shared a whole conversation in a glance, now he and Butch were talking in silence, too. All it took was that exchange of single syllables, ending in a proverbial doubleheader.
Hm’er, as was the case.
Butch had never been totally comfortable with what V needed from time to time. Jane, on the other hand, had become not only very comfortable, but also very damned good at going there with him.
Jesus, he loved that female.
But his roommate had always accepted him. Without any reservations.
And that was a kind of true love, wasn’t it.
As V went over to sit in the sofa’s other corner, he mostly kept the wincing to himself as his butt made contact with the cushions and accepted his weight. And then he let his head fall back against the padded rise behind his shoulders. After a nice, long siiiiiiiiigh, he put one, and then the other, of his bare feet up next to the cop’s. Beside him, Butch resumed his own sprawl.
While the TV continued to drone on, V focused on the images, the sound, the—
“Mystic Pizza?” he said.