He leads me through a side hallway that smells like old cedar and faint smoke. The air feels heavier here, like the walls are keeping secrets.
“Nice place,” I murmur.
He shrugs. “Pays for the next stage of my life.”
“Is it weird? People offering up their bodies like blank canvas?”
“Not weird,” he says, pushing the door open. “Most of them just want something permanent when everything else feels temporary.”
Outside, the sun is nearly gone. The air is crisp. His car waits nearby, but he doesn’t move toward it. Just lingers beside me, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie.
“You didn’t answer me earlier.”
“About?”
“Why you stepped in last night.”
“I told you.”
“You said you were jealous.”
“That’s an answer.”
I smile softly. “It’s a deflection.”
“Would it be so bad if I was?”
“No,” I say. Then, quieter: “I think I liked it.”
His gaze dips to my mouth, then back up.
“I should go,” I say again. But I don’t move.
“You keep saying that,” he murmurs.
Then he steps back, just slightly, letting the tension fold back between us.
“I’ll see you back at the house,” he says.
I nod.
But as I walk to the car, it feels less like I escaped something... and more like I stepped into something I’m nowhere near ready for.
11A
EMILY
By the time I get back to the house, the light outside has thinned into that moody gray-blue that makes the trees look like silhouettes. The whole world feels paused—too late for afternoon, not quite night.
My mom’s voice floats up from downstairs, sing-song and too bright. That tone always means one thing: she wants something.
“We’re going out for dinner, Em! Aidan made reservations—get dressed!”
I stare at my closet like it personally offended me.
Thirty minutes later, I’m in the backseat of Aidan’s SUV, squeezed between my mother and her cloud of perfume, wearing a fitted black dress that feels too formal for whatevercasual upscale seafoodis supposed to mean.
Cole is already at the restaurant when we arrive—alone, of course. No one thought to tell him we were coming. Typical.
