Page 185 of Ruin Me Gently

I didn’t. Mostly because I was too busy trying not to throw up from the sheer existential horror of how high up we were with no walls.

Finally, I turned, just enough to glance at him. He was holding out his hand in offering. “You’re safe,” he said. “You don’t have to go near the edge. Just stay with me.”

I flexed my fingers and reached for him. He led me across the rooftop, away from the dizzying drop, and toward a small loveseat beneath an archway of ivy.

The moment I sat, he stepped away briefly, flicking on an overhead outdoor heater nearby before sinking down next to me.

Neither of us spoke as we sat there, looking out at the skyline. My head was mush. Too much had happened. Too much was still happening. Here I was, sitting on a rooftop I shouldn’t even have access to, holding hands with someone who was once a shadow.

I stared out at the city, chewing the inside of my cheek as a question that had been sitting on my tongue for too long bubbled its way up my throat. “Can I ask you something?”

His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “Sure?”

I turned my head toward him, watching the way the light wind tugged at the loose curls around his temple. “What started all of this?”

His brows pulled together slightly. “What, the garden?”

I let out a laugh. “No…”

His fingers tightened around mine, but he didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t entirely sure he was going to.

I wet my lips, looking back at the horizon. “I just… I want—need—to know what started all of this. I know you’ve already said it was to keep me safe. I know you’ve said it was because I needed someone…”

He exhaled slowly through his nose before speaking. “Do you remember the gala?”

I blinked. The gala? That night felt like a lifetime ago. The ballroom. The chandeliers. The masks.

“The Graves and Everly gala?”

My pulse tripped over itself for a second. I wasn’t sure what he was bringing that up for—but then something shifted, the question slowly unfolding into an answer I already knew. And it clicked.

“Wait,” I said slowly, turning back to him, watching the way his dark eyes flickered in the fading light. “You’re Graves?”

His fingers tightened around mine, and he nodded. “Finn is Everly.”

The puzzle pieces tried to rearrange themselves in real time. Fragmented shards of memories rushed back to me. The weight of Clark’s hand on my waist. The tension. The discomfort. The crushing pressure against my wrist.

“I suggest you let go of her. Now. And walk away.”

That was the last thing I’d heard before I blinked and found myself on the roof. Away from Clark. Away from the noise. Smoking a cigarette I didn’t even want. And there was someone there. A man. He asked if I was okay, he sat with me, talked to me, stayed. He didn’t crowd me, just existed there on the edge of my world.

And at the end of the night, I was home. Safe.

God, I felt like I was breathing underwater.

The man who stopped Clark.

The man on the roof.

“… It was you?”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything. Just sat there, watching me, waiting.

Waiting for me to react?

Waiting for me to pull away?

Waiting for me to tell him this changed things?

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