I look at it. Ather.
I’m two seconds from snapping her wrist and letting her wear it like a bracelet.
“Gaia.” Athens’s voice is a blade.
Gaia freezes. Lets go. Smart girl.
“You’ve both kept secrets from me,” Athens says, voice thick, full of fury and grief. “I’m not ready to process it. I need to leave.”
“I won’t argue with you,” the older woman says gently. “You’re a grown woman. But please… don’t go.”
Athens doesn’t answer. She just grabs my hand like I’m her escape route. And I fucking am.
Still, I pull her aside.
“You don’t have to go anywhere,” I say. “If you need time, take it. But Ihadto see you.”
She sighs. That sigh of hers, that fragile, exasperated thing, makes me want to pull her into my lap and not let her up until she’s smiling again.
“You’re right. I just… it’s too much. What I saw. What they told me.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “It’s too much.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Honest. Blunt.
So fucking her.
“Fair enough,” I murmur. “I came here for two reasons.”
Her gaze flickers, dangerous and soft all at once.
“Not that,” I say, when I catch her thinking it. That pout. I want to bite it.
“Then what?” she huffs. “How do you know about this house?”
I lift a single finger. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Her expression shifts, like lightning cracking across her face.
From sorrow to mischief.
And just like that, the air between us thickens with all the things we haven’t said. The things wewilldo.
And I already know tonight, I’m not walking away clean.
Not when I’ve got a Little Fox to catch.
She plays with fire. Just like me.
The second her fingers drum against her chin and her eyes light up with realization, I know exactly where this is going.
“Karter?” she asks, already smiling like she’s caught me in a trap I walked into willingly.
I nod. “The one and only. I needed you, bad. He was the only one I trusted to track you down without asking questions.”
We walk toward the swing at the edge of the porch while the two women behind us stare like they’re watching a slow-motion car crash.
