Page 133 of Killing Me Softly

Kenny kept his hands underneath Aaron’s top, resting his fingers over his skin, warm and steady. Grounding him. Letting himfeelthe connection, the weight of presence, the silent reassurance that Kenny washere. That he wasn’t alone.

Aaron hadn’t moved in nearly a minute.

Kenny could feel the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his breath had slowed. Not in relaxation, but in that measured way Aaron hadtrainedhimself to, when his emotions started clawing at his throat. A survival tactic. Years of conditioning. Aaron didn’t react immediately. He absorbed. Processed. Calculated what was safest, what was necessary, what he allowed himself to feel.

Everyone else had fallen silent. Waiting.

Then Aaron sniffed, a sharp, almost dismissive sound, fingers tightening around the letter before he abruptly crushed it in his fist. The sudden movement sent a ripple of energy through him,a decision made, a shift from stillness to action. A response to discomfort that Kenny had seen so many times before.

Aaron jumped from his lap.

“C’mon, boy,” he said, as if nothing had happened at all. As if the letter wasn’t still balled up in his grip, knuckles white from how hard he held it.

Chaos barked, tail wagging, oblivious to the tension, just happy to be included. He leapt down, following as Aaron strode toward the shoreline, his steps quick, determined, a pace demonstrating the need for movement. Todosomething.Controlsomething. Or risk the emotions clawing their way to the surface.

Kenny didn’t stop him.

Didn’t call out. Didn’t get up. Didn’t ask to dissect the words on that letter. To show Aaron how to read between those jagged lines. That was up to him.

Jack shifted, watching Aaron’s retreating form, brows furrowing.“He okay?”

Kenny stayed quiet for a beat, watching closely.

Experience guiding him, he read the signs, analysing the shifts in Aaron’s body language. His shoulders held too tight, his hands too stiff.

Aaron needed to deal with it. Alone.

And Kenny knew exactly how he would.

Sure enough, Aaron made it all the way to the sea’s edge, waves crashing at his feet, the cold water lapping over his boots. Chaos danced excitedly beside him, chasing the tide, but Aaron didn’t flinch at the icy spray. He raised the letter, still clenched in his grip, and tore it apart. Not in one dramatic motion, not in a burst of rage. Instead, piece by piece, he shredded it, stripping it down to nothing. Then he let go, showering the fragments into the wind, letting the sea claim them.

The waves swallowed the pieces whole.

Gone. Just like that.

As Aaron lingered by the shore, watching the remnants of his past disappearing beneath the water, only then did Kenny answer Jack’s question.

“Yeah.” His lips quirked, the smallest, proudest smile forming. “He’s okay.”

After a while, Fraser got up, stretching before making his way toward Aaron, now fully engrossed in a game of fetch with Chaos. The golden retriever bounded across the sand, ears flopping, tail wagging wildly as Aaron threw the ball, laughing when the dog nearly tripped over his own feet trying to catch it. Fraser joined in without a word, seamlessly inserting himself into the playful bedlam, and soon it became a three-way game of ball toss and chase, their voices carrying over the breeze, blending with the rhythmic crash of the waves.

Kenny and Jack remained seated, watching from their chairs, fingers curled around their whisky glasses. For a long while, they sat in silence.

Then Jack spoke. “You still think he’s gonna leave you?”

Kenny didn’t answer right away.

He stayed fixed on Aaron, watching the way he ran, the way he threw his head back when he laughed, the way he existed here. Free, happy, alive. Kenny knew Aaron loved him. Knew it in the way he kissed him. The way he held him at night. How he reached for him in his sleep, calling his name like a tether to something real.

But love didn’t always mean forever.

Kenny lowered his head, exhaling. “Yeah.”

Jack shifted beside him, clearly not expecting that answer. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

Kenny swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching how the light caught it, how the ripples moved in soft, lazy waves.Like the tide, time, the things that could slip away if you weren’t careful enough to hold on to them.

“Of course it worries me.” He paused, letting the words settle. “It would destroy me. My life fucking sucks without him.”

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