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If Eva’s mother could see her now, she’d be absolutely horrified. Because the only thing worse than Eva becoming a war nurse is her becoming a flapper, and here she is being both at the same time. Here she is in the backroom of a speakeasy, wearing a dress that shows far too much of her legs, leaning over the brutalized body of some half-dressed, two-bit gangster who just got himself shot in an alleyway.
Her mother would be appalled at what her little girl has become.
But Eva doesn’t have time to worry about what her mother would think right now. She’s a little too preoccupied with trying to make sure that Jasper—the reckless, stammering, wonderful idiot who called her “angel” when Victor and Annabelle dragged his half-unconscious body into the backroom—doesn’t die on the table in front of her.
“Alright Jasper, stay with me,” she says, her hands moving quickly across his bleeding body, “You’re going to be fine, you just have to stay awake for me, alright?”
His eyes are still open and he’s watching her, but as her fingers press down near the wound, he hisses in pain. She keeps an eye on his face, tracking his reactions. She can see the shell shock creeping up on him—knows the signs so well now—and she refuses to let it happen. Not here, not now, not when she’s around to ease him through it. She sees his arm shaking against the table and his eyes go a bit manic, struggling to focus on any one thing. His mind is threatening to give into the sense memory of this kind of pain. It’s trying to drag him back into the trenches as he bleeds out on the backroom table of the Maharani.
Not tonight, Eva tells herself.
“Jasper,” she says, so sweet and so calm in the face of so much blood, “I’m right here, sweetheart. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you. I’m going to fix you right up. Just focus on me, alright? Just focus on my voice.”
His bright blue eyes lock with hers—his own mind finally finding some purchase—and he nods, quick and sharp, even as his arm continues to tremble. She’s something to focus on, something to anchor him to this time and place. She can’t undo what he’s been through, but she can do her damnedest to keep the horrifying memories at bay.
“Alright. Alright, good.” She reaches out and grabs the bottle of moonshine off the nearby crate where Victor had left it when he and Annabelle first brought Jasper into the room.
“Jasper, this is going to hurt. A lot,” she’s already prepping the area as she speaks, “And I’m so sorry about that, but I need to disinfect the wound. Stitching you up won’t do you any good if this gets infected anyway. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it won’t last long and I’m still here. Just focus on me.”
Before he can do more than nod his agreement, Eva pours the alcohol across his abdomen. His earlier hiss of pain transforms into a shout and for a moment he sounds almost feral. She has nothing for him to bite down on, so she supposes screaming is better than gritting his teeth even if the sound cuts straight to her heart.
She continues working despite his distress. The quicker she acts, the quicker this will be over for both of them. Another bullet grazed his shoulder during the fight and the moonshine soaks into the blood-stained sleeve of his shirt as she moves to cleanse that wound next.
She keeps muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” on an endless loop as she cleans and dries his injuries. First the bullet wound in his abdomen—which, by the grace of God, somehow missed his vital organs—then the stab wound in his side, and finally his shoulder.
“Alright, alright, we’re almost there. Bullets are out and the worst part’s over. Now I’m just going to have to stitch you up. You’re going to be alright, Jasper. You still with me?”
He growls in response, a “yes” caught in the back of his throat as he nods again.
She keeps talking as she digs her suture kit out of her medical bag. She can feel his gaze on her as she disinfects the needle with another splash of moonshine after holding it in the flame of the candle that sit beside her supplies.
Everything feels rushed and frantic, but she’s going to do this right. He doesn’t deserve any more awful scars.
Jasper hisses again as the needle sinks into his flesh, but the pain is nowhere near as harsh as the bullets that entered him earlier or the knife that followed after. She works quickly, her stitches neat and well-practiced even under this stress. She keeps one hand on his arm, trying to soothe his shaking muscles as her other hand works.
Eva doesn’t stop talking, not for one moment. She counts off her stitches, tells him when she’s moving from one wound to the next, reassures him that he’s doing so well, that she’s right here, that they’re almost done.
When she ties off the final stitch, she surveys her completed work with a critical eye. It’s been a long time since she’s needed to stitch up a wounded soldier and she never imagined she’d have to do it in the backroom of a speakeasy, but she hasn’t forgotten her training. She hasn’t lost the muscle memory and her stitches are still straight and clean.
She wipes blood from his forehead—a minor cut above his eyebrow that will heal without much trouble—and presses a quick kiss to his pale cheek, the one that isn’t covered by his prosthetic.
“You did so well. You’re going to be alright,” Eva whispers close to his ear before she pulls away.
The rest of the coterie stepped out earlier to give her the space and quiet she needed to work, but if she’s going to bandage him properly, she’ll need some assistance. Once Jasper has a chance to catch his breath—once his arms stop shaking and his eyes clear—Eva calls in Annabelle to help prop him up on the table.
“I’m strong enough to sit on my own,” Jasper mutters as Annabelle wraps her arm around his shoulders.
“Hush and let her help you,” Eva responds, falling back on her years of experience dealing with petulant soldiers, too proud for their own good. He grumbles but lets Annabelle slowly lift him into a sitting position without further complaint.
Eva works quickly, with the efficiency expected of a war nurse, all deft hands and practiced movements. She loops her arms around his waist and passes the bandages between her fingers. She leans in close to do her work and she can feel Jasper’s quickened heartbeat under her fingertips. She wraps the gauze the way she was taught, covering the stitched wounds and securing it in place.
When she’s finished, Annabelle slowly lays Jasper back down on the table and looks to Eva for further instruction. Eva thanks her for her assistance and Annabelle gives her a nod before slipping out of the room again to give them some privacy and report back to Victor and Nelli.
“You alright?” Eva asks, surveying her work. The carnage is hidden now, but she knows her own skills. Both wounds will still scar, she’s sure, despite her best efforts to prevent it. But he’s safe from infection and the scars won’t be nearly as bad as if she weren’t there to help.
“Yeah,” Jasper answers, his voice still rough from shouting and pain.
A comfortable silence falls between them then. Eva settles herself on top of a wooden crate beside Jasper’s makeshift operating table. The adrenaline is still pounding in her veins, and she reaches out for Jasper’s hand to ground herself as much as to comfort him. She forgets the blood that’s still drying on her skin as she laces her fingers through his and he starts rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.
The silence hangs in the air before Jasper finally breaks it.
“Sorry I ruined your dress.”
She looks up to his face and nearly breaks into wholly inappropriate laughter. She’s just saved his life from multiple gunshot wounds with limited supplies in the backroom of an illegal underground nightclub and he’s apologizing for getting blood on her dress. And it is rather a lot of blood, smeared across the skirt of her white dress and streaked up her arms. She’s seen worse, of course, but not since she was working in a field hospital. And the look on Jasper’s face is just so sincere. It takes every bit of her self-control not to grab him and kiss him right then and there. But as much as she wants to kiss him, she doesn’t want to risk him pulling his fresh stitches in the process.
So instead she restrains herself, like the proper young lady her mother always wanted her to be, and grips his hand a little tighter instead.
“Clothes can be replaced. You can’t.”
He smiles, just a little—still so unused to accepting compliments—and she smiles back.
After another moment, Jasper breaks the silence again. He laughs to himself before grimacing and clutching at his side.
“Sorry,” she says, resting her free hand on top of his, her arm stretched across his body, “You’ve also got two broken ribs from the fist fight. You’re lucky, they didn’t puncture any organs, but laughing’s going to hurt for a while.”
“Good to know,” he grits out.
When she sees the spike of pain fade from his expression, she asks, “What was so funny?”
“Not funny, exactly. I just… I never thought the first time you saw me shirtless would be because I got myself shot. Not very romantic, all things considered.”
Eva laughs lightly and he smiles up at her. She doesn’t let herself dwell on the implications of his statement—that he has, in fact, considered the idea of letting her see him naked under different circumstances—because if she starts wandering down that rabbit hole, his stitches won’t survive the night.
“If it helps… I didn’t mind what I saw,” she settles on saying.
He can’t seem to process her words for a moment as he stumbles his way to a response, “I—uh… other than the blood.”
“Other than the blood, yes,” she agrees, “But… you weren’t the only one in the war, Jasper. I’ve seen a lot worse than this over the years.”
“I’m sorry.”
His sincerity surprises her. No one ever apologizes for what the nurses went through, for the things they saw. For the blood and the screaming and the desperation. For the death and pain they saw and felt. For the lives they saw slip through their fingers as they did everything they could to keep people alive. They weren’t the ones killing but they saw more than their fair share of death.
“It’s the life I chose. I don’t regret it,” she tells him.
“Doesn’t mean you have to bear it all by yourself.”
“Neither do you, Jasper.”
They watch each other for a moment, weighing their words and their silence in equal measure. Eva doesn’t have the same scars he has—not the ones on his body or the ones on his mind. She doesn’t wear a prosthetic; she doesn’t have shell shock. But she carries the war in ways people who stayed on the homefront just don’t. She and Jasper are not the same, but they understand each other in ways civilians never could.
He looks like he’s about to say something else when Nelli pops her head around the open doorway. Jasper and Eva do not move away from each other, their hands still tangled together and caked in blood, even as they turn to look at her.
“Annabelle said you’d worked your magic and brought our Jasper back from the brink. I just wanted to check in on both of you.”
“I’m fine,” Jasper growls, gripping Eva’s hand even tighter as if he’s worried she’ll pull away under Nelli’s gaze, that she won’t want to touch him where other people can see. He has no reason to worry; she squeezes his hand in return and stays exactly where she is. If other people want to judge them for finding a little happiness in this chaotic world, Eva couldn’t care less what they think.
“And you, Eva?” Before she can respond, Nelli’s eyes fall to Eva’s dress. There’s no hiding the damage; the blood stands out sharply against the silver-white fabric. “Oh, darling, would you like a change of clothes?”
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Eva says, casting her eyes to the floor. She is not a shy woman by nature, but Nelli’s unrelenting confidence always makes her pause.
“Nonsense,” Nelli responds, waving away the concern with a flick of her wrist, “I’m sure I have something in my dressing room that’ll fit you.”
“If you insist…”
“I do. It’s the least I can offer after all the help you’ve given us. Come with me and we’ll get you fixed right up.”
Eva stands, slowly taking her hands back from Jasper’s tight grip.
“I’ll be right back,” she tells him with a soft smile. He frowns, but lets her go reluctantly.
As Nelli leads her away, Eva sees Annabelle and Victor make their way into the room. Victor has a clean shirt folded over his arm and a distinctly unhappy expression on his face. At his side, Annabelle’s frustration is barely contained.
She faintly registers the idea that Nelli’s offer of help might just be a distraction to get her out of the room long enough for someone to reprimand Jasper for being a reckless fool again. She doesn’t have the energy to fully dwell on it now, but she can’t bring herself to mind. She was planning on reprimanding him later, anyway. Once he was feeling a little better, of course. And probably after she kissed him senseless for still being alive.
In Nelli’s dressing room, Eva is surrounded by an explosion of silk and beads and feathers. There are corsets tossed across the top of a changing screen in one corner and bolts of luxurious fabric propped up against a worn couch pushed against the far wall. Nelli leads her to the vanity, where there is already a basin of warm water and a soft cloth laid out for her.
Eva scrubs at her hands and arms until she stains the water red.
As Eva dries off her pale skin, Nelli surfaces from her dive into a costume trunk.
“I don’t think you want to wear one of our showgirls’ get-ups,” she says, holding a bundle of silk in her arms, “I mean, I’m sure you’d look marvelous, but Jasper might just have a heart attack if he saw you with so much skin on display. Which would be a real shame after all the hard work you just put into keeping him alive. So, instead, I thought this might suit you.”
Nelli shakes out the fabric she’s holding to reveal a white silk robe, trimmed in pale pink lace along the hem and sleeve cuffs.
“It’s not much but—”
“It’s wonderful, Nelli. Thank you.” Eva reaches out to take the robe, but Nelli pulls it away.
“Go behind the screen and get out of that dress before I hand you this or else you’ll just get blood on it, too. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Eva does as she’s told, stripping down to her slip behind the changing screen and passing her ruined dress to Nelli before pulling on the offered robe. It’s perhaps a bit too long for her, falling all the way to her ankles, and the wide sleeves threaten to slip off her slim shoulders. But at a certain angle in a certain light, she looks almost elegant.
As she steps out into the dressing room, Nelli smiles at her.
“You look lovely, darling,” she says, Eva’s stained dress hanging over one arm, “Now hurry back to Jasper before he gets impatient and starts looking for you. I’ll take care of the dress.”
“I can help. I know how to get the stain out,” Eva rushes to tell her. It’s her nicest dress—the one with the intricate silver beading over white lace, with just the slightest hint of a floral pattern near the neckline—and she can’t bear the thought of it getting thrown in the trash or burned to hide any evidence of the night’s events. “I picked up a few tricks during the war—we dealt with a lot of blood. I can fix it. Just… don’t throw it away. Please.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Nelli responds, patting Eva’s arm affectionately, “You’re not the only one who knows how to deal with bloodstains. You may have picked up a few things during the war, but I’ve been in show business for longer than I’d care to mention. I know how to get an unsavory stain out of a dress this nice.”
“But—”
“You don’t have to fix every problem, Eva. You’re allowed to let people help you.”
Eva lets out a humorless laugh, releasing some of the tension from her shoulders.
“I’m a war nurse, Nelli,” she says, “I don’t know how to stop helping people when they need me.”
“Well, I’m telling you to take the rest of the night off. You’ve done your duty and saved your soldier. Now you get to enjoy the benefits of having him alive and well for the rest of the night. He looked like he was in pretty bad shape when Victor and Annabelle brought him in, though, so… maybe go slow for now and break the bed tomorrow.”
Eva blushes despite herself.
“We aren’t… I mean, we haven’t… Jasper and I aren’t… there yet.”
“Well, wherever you are, enjoy yourself. You deserve it. You both do.” Nelli smiles and it sets Eva at ease, pulling her mind away from the thoughts that have left her pale skin glowing pink. “Now run along back to your soldier and let someone else save the world for a bit.”
Eva smiles and sighs and makes her way out of the dressing room. Nelli—despite her flirtatious personality and the scandalous rumors that surround her—would make an excellent mother, Eva thinks as she makes her way back through the bar. She reaches the door to the backroom just as Annabelle and Victor are leaving it.
“Looks like Nelli set you to rights,” Annabelle says, surveying Eva’s new outfit.
“She did.”
“She’s wonderful like that,” Victor says, not even pretending to hide his fondness. Eva’s seen them together a handful of times in the past few months, seen the way he dotes on Nelli and the way she softens under his gaze. She thought they were married the first time she met the group and has yet to receive a decent answer as to why they are not. Eva’s not one to judge, though—especially not when her own love life looks the way it does.
Victor gestures to the doorway before adding, “He’s all yours.”
Eva laughs lightly and goes to move past them as Annabelle adds, “We’ll give you two some privacy.”
As she steps into the doorway, she sees Jasper sitting on the edge of the table. He’s hunched over, his hands clasped in his lap as he stares at the floor. He’s wearing a new shirt—the one she saw Victor walk in with earlier—but he hasn’t bothered to button it up over his bandages. He doesn’t look happy after whatever conversation he had with the others, but when he looks up at her, a smile breaks across his face.
“Hey angel,” he says.
Hearing him say the nickname again—now with a clear head and unclouded eyes—makes her smile.
“I’m no angel.”
“Coulda fooled me.” He stares in admiration and she tries her best to see herself through his eyes: the long white robe tied around her waist, the pale blonde curls that frame her face, and the golden light streaming in from the bar behind her that makes her skin seem to glow. She laughs lightly but doesn’t bother to argue with him.
“How do you feel?” she asks, moving to stand in front of him. In this position, their usual height difference is drastically reduced. At least for the moment, she doesn’t have to crane her neck to look him in the eye. She reaches out to take his hand, running her thumb across his knuckles as he speaks.
“Better. Well… I mean, I still feel like I got shot earlier tonight, but I’m not dead so… at least that’s something.”
She moves her free hand up to cup his cheek, needing to feel the warmth of him against her skin. He leans into her touch like he’s desperate for it.
“I am very, very glad you’re not dead, Jasper.”
“All thanks to you.”
She let’s go of his hand and for just a moment, she sees the worry in his eyes—every time she stops touching him, he’s worried it will be for good. But she does not pull away. Instead she places her hand on his other cheek, cradling his face in her palms. She doesn’t shy away from touching his prosthetic—it’s just another piece of him, after all. She tilts his head up to make him look her in the eyes. The night is finally catching up to her and, even as her hands are gentle, the slightest edge of anger creeps into her voice.
“You have to stop throwing yourself in front of danger like that, Jasper,” she tells him, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, “Because we’re going to come after you, no matter what. Victor and Annabelle and Nelli are all going to keep dragging your body out of alleyways, even when you tell them to leave you behind. And they’re going to shoot whoever shoots you. And every time they bring you to me, bruised and bleeding and half-delirious with pain, I’m going to do everything I can to keep you alive.”
“I’m not worth—”
“You’re worth it, Jasper. To us—to me—you’re worth it. You’re not just a nameless soldier to us. You’re not a dog tag number or a human shield. You’re Jasper. You’re our Jasper and we… we care about you.”
She does not say “love,” even though the word wants to escape her lips. She knows it would be too much for him—after one of his worst nights since the war, with his body still in pain and his mind still rattled, “love” might be too much to process at the moment. So she weighs her words before they leave her mouth and settles on “care.” It’s safer, at least for now, and she files “love” away for another, less blood-stained night.
“I’m always going to come after you, do you understand that?” she asks.
There is shock in his eyes, mixed deep beneath the adoration, but he whispers back, “I—I understand… now, I understand.”
“You’re not just putting yourself in danger anymore.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry.”
Eva says nothing, just presses her forehead against his and exists in the silence for a long moment. She wants to wrap Jasper up in a blanket and put him somewhere safe where nothing can ever hurt him again. She wants to keep him out of trouble, wants to kiss him senseless and drag him to bed to keep him distracted. And perhaps it’s just the fear and the stress and the adrenaline crash, but some small part of her wants to track down Rodrigo and Aurora and tear them apart so they can never touch him again. She wants to burn the Camarilla’s criminal empire to the ground. She wants Jasper safe, no matter the cost and damn the consequences, and that realization frightens her just a little.
Eventually, she pulls back but does not step away.
“Is it alright if I sit with you?” she asks.
“I—yeah, yeah. That would be… fine.”
She hops up onto the edge of the table, leaving only a few inches of space between them. She thought he was done surprising her for the night, but his next words are unexpected:
“Can I touch you?”
His voice is so quiet and so sincere. He’s already touched her without asking tonight—has already reached out to her in a blind, emotional panic and mumbled something that sounded like “Did they hurt you?” before Annabelle and Victor laid him out on the table—but he’s asking now. He’s asking because it matters to him, because he doesn’t like people—or at least people who aren’t her, it seems—touching him without warning, and he extends that same courtesy to her. He’s seen her startle and tense up at sudden touches, though he’s never asked her why.
She can’t help but laugh a little at the sight before her. He’s a grown man, a soldier, bandaged and bare-chested like a war hero, sitting right next to a pretty girl who’s already half-undressed and he’s looking at her like a sheepish school boy asking to walk her home from Sunday school. She has heard him call himself ugly and unworthy and all manner of unkind things, but sitting next to him now she sees only a man who she’d be more than happy to let hold her for the rest of the night.
He sees her laugh, sees the slight teasing shake of her head, and looks away from her.
“Nevermind, it’s fine,” he says, interpreting her amusement as a refusal.
And he doesn’t pout, not quite, but it wouldn’t change her answer even if he did. She never intended to deny him this.
She reaches out and places her hand on the back of his neck. She barely pulls him toward her before he crumbles, resting his head on her shoulder and curling into her. He melts into her touch as she wraps one arm around his shoulders and strokes his arm with her other hand. Her cheek ends up pressed against his forehead and they sit together that way, smiling softly against each other and letting the heavy night settle around them.
Eventually Jasper stirs against her and asks, “Are you heading home soon?”
“Are you?”
“I wanted to, but the rest of the coterie refuses to let me leave tonight. Something about being worried the Cam will try to finish me off. They want to keep me close by to make sure no one tries to kick me while I’m down. Victor’s got some extra rooms upstairs, so… looks like I’m stuck here for the night.”
“Good, you shouldn’t be by yourself while your injuries are still fresh.”
Eva still hasn’t answered his question, though. She knows what she wants, knows where she wants to sleep tonight—knows that Kyoko and Violet would cover for her if she didn’t return to the rooming house until tomorrow morning and that Hester probably wouldn’t reprimand her, even if she found out the truth. Men aren’t allowed upstairs at Hester’s establishment, but she’s never said her girls couldn’t spend the night wherever they chose.
It would be so much easier if Jasper proposed the idea himself, but Eva knows he won’t. Falling for Jasper has never been easy, but that’s never stopped her before.
“Would Victor have enough room for one more upstairs?” she finally asks.
“You… we could ask. I—I’m not sure how many spare rooms he has, but… if you need somewhere to stay… you can have mine. I’ll find a couch for the night. I’ll—”
“Jasper,” she cuts off his rambling with a light laugh and places a hand on his cheek again to turn his face to hers, “Let me be… a bit more clear. Would it be alright if I spent the night… with you?”
“I—you… I don’t… I don’t want you to think you have to… do that, just because I’m hurt.”
She drops her hand down to his shoulder and moves her thumb in gentle circles against his clean shirt.
“I don’t want to stay just because you’re hurt. Your safety is important to me and I don’t want you to be alone tonight. But if I didn’t want this, I wouldn’t have suggested it. And I’m not suggesting anything more than sleep and… comfort. We don’t have to… do anything. And honestly, you probably shouldn’t even attempt to do anything along those lines until you’ve healed more fully. And…” Eva pauses, taking a breath to steady herself before continuing, “You’re not the only one shaken up by what happened tonight. I… I don’t want to be alone tonight, either. If that’s alright…?”
“That’s… Yeah, that’s more than alright,” he answers, “As long as you’re sure?”
“I’m very sure. After all,” she adds, attempting to lighten the tension that has built up between them, “Nelli’s still trying to fix my dress. I can’t exactly walk home in this.”
He lets out a short bark of laughter before leaning closer to her.
“I suppose not. You look great, though.”
“Apparently I look like an angel,” she teases, matching his posture and leaning in even closer. There is so little space left between them now.
“I meant every word.”
This is not their first kiss. No, that came at the end of their first date—when he had been awkward and she had been sure of herself, and she’d felt like she was floating on air when she finally pulled him in and felt him kiss her in return.
In Eva’s opinion, there have not been nearly enough kisses since then, but this one is worth it.
She’s wanted to kiss him all night, from the moment she first walked into the club and he nearly tripped over himself when he laid eyes on her. She thought it would be after a dance and a drink, hidden away in some dark corner of the speakeasy where no one would bother them. Instead they are here in the backroom of the Maharani—him half-dressed and wrapped in bandages, her wearing nothing but her slip and a borrowed robe—and somehow it is so much sweeter than anything else she could have pictured.
This tastes like almost losing him and there is an extra thrill to kissing after cheating death. It’s not a flavor she’d like to revisit any time soon, but for now it is sweet enough to satisfy her and more intoxicating than anything behind the bar. She wants to climb into his lap, wants to run her hands through his close-cropped hair, and wants to tell him to touch her. Eva wants, but he’s in no position to give her any of that tonight. And she’s not really ready to ask for it, either.
So, she kisses him, slow and gentle, and feels him kiss her back. He does not push her, does not take or demand more than she offers. He simply accepts what she gives him and gives back what he can, his hand finding its way into hers when they finally come up for air.
She presses her forehead to his again and whispers, “It’s getting late and I’m exhausted.”
“Me, too.”
“Then let’s go to bed.”
No one bats an eye when Eva leads Jasper out of the backroom, his arm slung over her shoulders as she helps support his weight.
Annabelle is sitting in one corner with Mark, checking in with her own love life and paying little attention to anyone else’s. Victor and Nelli are making plans, sending messengers across town and prepping for whatever comes next.
Victor looks up from a conversation with Campbell as Jasper and Eva step into the room. He points them in the right direction and Eva helps Jasper up two flights of stairs—in heels—before they finally reach the right bedroom.
It isn’t a big or luxurious room, but it’s nice. There’s a small desk in one corner and a wardrobe against the wall, and the mattress on the wrought iron bed frame looks comfortable. After the night they’ve had, Eva couldn’t ask for much more.
Once they’re inside and the door is closed behind them, Eva politely turns her back to let him change into a spare set of pajamas he has tucked away in a drawer. Apparently, he’s spent the night here before. She doesn’t ask why.
“You can turn around now,” he says, eventually.
And when she does, he stands before her, so self-aware and trying his best to hide it. All his harsh angles are hidden away beneath his sleep clothes and if it weren’t for the small cut that still lingers above his eyebrow, she could almost pretend the last few hours never happened.
But the pit in her stomach and the iron in her heart tells her it was all very real and she won’t be forgetting it any time soon.
“Robe on or off?” she asks, trying to distract herself from that line of thinking.
He blinks and stammers and Eva could swear she sees him blush even in the dim light of the bedside lamp.
“I—you don’t have to… I don’t want to push you,” he finally says.
“It’s not pushing me if I’m the one who suggested it,” she counters, taking a step closer to him. She can almost hear his brain short-circuiting as she moves toward him. “But I don’t want to push you either, so…”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with. Whatever you want.”
And she wants so many things.
She wants to kiss him again, wants to push him back into bed, wants to spend the rest of the night reminding him that there are things worth staying alive for. But neither of them are ready for that, not really. They are too tired and too bruised to explore that path just yet. But there will be other nights, she tells herself. Nights with less bloodshed and more confidence. Nights were she can kiss him without broken ribs and torn stitches getting in her way.
But tonight she smiles at him through the dark and unties the robe from around her waist. It slides off her shoulders and she slips her arms out of it, never taking her eyes off Jasper’s. He’s trying so hard not to stare, not to let his eyes wander from her face—still trying his best to be a gentleman for her, even after everything that’s happened.
His concentration makes her laugh, which makes him smile, which makes the whole night feel like it might have been worth it after all.
Eva leaves the robe folded across the back of the desk chair to keep it from getting wrinkled and sets her heels down nearby. She peels her stockings off, as well, giggling when she hears Jasper cough and sputter behind her. When she turns back around, he’s sitting on one side of the bed, staring at the wall in an attempt to not to stare at her.
And that’s when she notices.
“You don’t have to leave it on,” she says, walking toward him. At his raised eyebrow, she adds, “Your prosthetic, it can’t be comfortable to sleep in.”
“It’s not.”
“Then why leave it on?”
“I don’t want to scare you.”
She places one finger beneath his chin and tilts his face up to look at her. She’s seen grown men flinch under Jasper’s gaze, seen him send people running with nothing more than the curl of his lip. But here before her, he is all soft, pleading eyes waiting for her judgement.
“I don’t scare easily,” is all she says. She won’t make the decision for him, won’t move to take the prosthetic off his cheek—it’s his decision, his comfort, and she’d never judge a warrior for their armor. Not when she has her own, not when she wears perfume like a shield, trying so hard to smell like flowers instead of the lingering memory of blood and antiseptic.
Jasper doesn’t break eye contact with her. He simply reaches up and removes the prosthetic from his face.
The scar underneath is twisted, but not fresh. A war wound long since healed. It doesn’t stand out as harshly as he thinks it does, but there is no denying its presence. It cuts from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear, a track of ruined skin across his sunken cheek. Even with all her experience from the war, she can’t say for sure what caused it: a knife, a grazing bullet, some wayward shrapnel, or something else entirely. It’s too dark to say for sure. But she can tell he’s waiting for her judgement, waiting for her to tell him to hide away again.
She doesn’t.
Instead she reaches out slowly—oh so carefully—to brush the tips of her fingers across the scar. He closes his eyes, sucks in his breath, but does not pull away from her.
“I’ve seen much worse, Jasper.” And she has. She’s seen far too many horrible things for a simple scar to scare her away anymore.
He nods, and tucks the prosthetic away in a drawer of the nightstand once she lets go of his chin. She pulls the covers back and after he settles in beside her, she turns to face him. He switches off the light and casts them both into darkness.
It is easier to pretend in the darkness, to forget why the world is harsh and bloody, and to ask for what she wants.
“Jasper,” she says his name like a question, her voice quiet in the still night air. She reaches out, curling up against him, and burying her face in his chest. She wants love and touch, but above all, she just wants comfort. Eva just wants him to hold her, even though she doesn’t have the words to ask for it.
He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t tense up the way he did the first time she hugged him. Instead, he wraps his long arms around her and pulls her close. One hand strokes up and down her spine, while the other rests against the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair.
Eva wants to exist in this moment forever, lying in Jasper’s arms with his heartbeat against her ear and his hands on her back. The promise that he will be safe and alive and holding her still when the morning sun breaks through their bedroom window.
Let the others think what they will about what happens between the two of them behind closed doors. In this moment, Eva is content.
But the events of the night have well and truly caught up to her now. The adrenaline that kicked in when she needed to act as a healer has long since faded. She needs rest, she needs sleep, she needs to be held, and Jasper is more than willing to help.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Eva whispers against his chest.
He tightens his hold on her and places a kiss on the top of her head. Their legs tangle together beneath the sheets.
“I’m glad you’re safe, too.”
The night air is warm and Eva can hear the sounds of Los Angeles outside the open window. Cars racing through the night, occasional laughter and shouting voices sing along to the distant jazz mingling with far-off sirens. The bass drum of Jasper’s steady heartbeat—safe and alive and the kind of quickness that comes from being this close to someone pretty—rounds out the melody. Her eyes drift closed as his breathing slows, and the strange late night lullaby of this dangerous life she’s stumbled into sends them both off to sleep.