Page 87 of Beneath the Surface

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The next hours passed in a blur.

Bless him, Nathan made the calls—funeral home, church, her grandmother’s friends. Quinn sat at the kitchen table, utterly useless, and watched him work with a kind of numb detachment, like she was watching it happen to someone else.

If only…

Dax sat beside her, his hand resting on her lower back, a constant warm presence. Every so often his thumb would move in small circles, a reminder that he was there.

The funeral director arrived—a soft-spoken woman in her fifties who handled everything with quiet efficiency. Arrangements were made. Decisions that felt impossible were somehow decided.

Her grandmother would be buried beside Quinn’s father. Of course she would. She’d been waiting to join him for ten years.

By the time the funeral home took her grandmother’s body away, it was after midnight. Nathan offered to stay, but Quinn sent him home. He looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed.

“You need rest too,” she told him. “I’ll be okay.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.” Nathan glanced at Dax, a question in his eyes.

“She won’t be,” Dax said quietly.

Nathan studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Call if you need anything. Anything at all.”

After he left, the house felt too quiet. Too empty. Quinn walked through the rooms like a ghost herself, touching things that had been her grandmother’s—a shawl draped over a chair, reading glasses on the side table, a half-finished crossword puzzle.

All these small pieces of a life. And now that life was over. What would she do with it all? Throw it away? It seemed so…grim. So final. So wrong.

“You should try to sleep,” Dax said from the doorway. He’d been following her through the house, staying close but giving her space.

“I can’t.” Quinn turned to face him. “Every time I close my eyes, I see her. See her dying. See her going still.”

“I know.” He crossed to her, his movements slow and careful, like she was a wild thing that might bolt. “But you need rest. You’ve been going non-stop for days.”

“I don’t want to rest. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to—” Her voice cracked and she shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone in the dark with my thoughts.”

Dax reached for her, and Quinn went into his arms willingly. They’d been here before—her breaking, him holding her together. It was becoming a pattern.

“You’re not alone,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m right here.”

Quinn pulled back to look at him. In the dim light from the hallway, his face was all sharp angles and shadows. But his eyes were soft when they met hers.

“Stay with me,” she whispered. “Tonight. I need—I can’t be alone.”

“Okay.” No hesitation. No questions. Just immediate acceptance.

She led him to her old bedroom—the room that had been hers since childhood, with its faded floral wallpaper and the window seat where she used to curl up and read.

They stood there for a moment, uncertain. This felt different from all the other times he’d held her. More deliberate. More weighted with possibility.

“I should—” Dax gestured vaguely toward the door. “I can sleep on the couch. Or the chair. I don’t have to—”

“Stay.” Quinn caught his wrist, staring up into his eyes, pleading with him. “Please. I need you close.”

Something shifted in his expression—a knowing heat mixing with the worry and grief. “Quinn, you’re grieving. You’re not thinking clearly. I don’t want to take advantage—”

“You’re not.” She stepped closer, her hand sliding from his wrist up his forearm. Even through his shirt, she could feel the heat of him, the solid muscle. “I know exactly what I’m asking.”

“Do you?” His voice had gone rough. “Because once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”