Page 168 of At First Spark
I don’t wait for him to push back again. I move past him, grabbing the first-aid kit from the cabinet and setting it down on the kitchen counter with more force than necessary. The sound cuts through the quiet, grounding me just enough to focus on something concrete.
“Sit,” I repeat, softer this time.
He watches me for a second, something unreadable moving through his expression before he finally gives in. Not fully, not easily—but enough. He lowers himself onto the stool, bracing his forearms against the counter as I step between him and the sink.
Up close, the damage is clearer.
The tear in his shirt. The angry red along his shoulder. The way the skin is already starting to darken where the beam caught him.
My stomach sinks.
“You should’ve let it go,” I murmur before I can stop myself.
His gaze flicks up to mine. “You were in there.”
“That’s not—”
“It is.”
The certainty in his voice cuts off whatever argument I was about to make.
I press my lips together and reach for the antiseptic, focusing on the motion instead of the weight behind it. When I touch his shoulder, he flinches slightly, just enough to tell me it hurts more than he’s letting on.
“Sorry,” I say quietly.
He shakes his head once. “Don’t.”
I clean the wound slowly, taking my time even though my hands want to move faster, want to fix it, want to erase what happened entirely. But healing doesn’t work like that.
Nothing does.
“You scared me,” I admit after a moment.
The words feel bigger than they should. He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is lower.
“Yeah.”
I finish wrapping his shoulder, the clean bandage stark against his skin, and step back just enough to look at him properly. The kitchen light catches in his eyes, pulling out something softer beneath the exhaustion, something steadier than what we’ve been dealing with all day.
“We lost the barn,” I say.
It comes out quieter than I intend, and Holt nods once.
“I know. It’s just a barn.”
The simplicity of it makes my chest ache.
“I’m sorry anyway,” I add.
He exhales slowly, looking past me for a second before his gaze comes back.
“It’s not on you.”
“I was there.”
“So was I.”
“That doesn’t—”
