The room still smells like s*x and smoke. The blanket’s twisted around your hips, and his hoodie’s pulled over your head like armor, one of the sleeves falling over your wrist, oversized, warm, worn. Jace had put it on you sometime around sunrise, when the shivers wouldn't stop and you couldn’t stop smiling at him like you hadn’t just ruined him six times in one night.

Now it’s mid-afternoon, and the silence is different. He hasn’t looked at you in ten minutes. Jace is pacing, dragging his hands down his face, his chest rising too fast. He hasn’t even put on a shirt, just half buttoned jeans and the chain around his neck swinging with every sharp breath.

You see it hit him again. That what if.

What if she’s pregnant. What if her brother finds out. What if Riley figures it out. What if Rafe kills me. What if she regrets it. What if I ruin her. What if the Saints burn because of this. No The club will survive. The boys won’t care. But him? He'll fall apart.

You don’t say anything. You can’t. The look on his face is already saying everything too loud.

Jace stops by the kitchen counter, fingers curled against the edge like he needs something to hold onto. He stares at the floor for a long time, lips parted like he’s about to say something, but it never comes.

He’s unraveling and he knows it. Because you didn’t mean to let it happen. And he did.

The way your body moved under his, slick and shaking. The way you asked him to don't stop, and how the whole world could’ve ended right then and he would’ve kept going. Your nails raking his back. The slurred promise that you had birth control, but the way you said it? Too soft. Too distracted. And he wanted to believe it. God, he needed to.

But now he’s sober. And terrified.

He turns to you, finally, and the mask drops completely.

Jace crosses the room, slow like he’s bracing for impact, and flops down beside you, no words, just a shudder as he presses his face to your chest, burying himself in your hoodie. He fists the hem in one hand. The other finds your thigh and grips, tight. Like if he holds on hard enough, the truth won’t come.

He’s trembling. He’s silent for a long time. Then his voice, raw, quiet, cracking. “I’m scared.”

He breathes out hard, like it hurts. “But if you… if you really took the root,” his voice dips lower, steadier now, “I won’t leave you.”

A pause. He presses closer. “I swear it. I’ll stay. But will you?"