His jaw works like he’s weighing every possible response and finding none he likes. “There were reasons.”
“What reasons?”
He drags a hand over the back of his neck, glancing away. “Ones you don’t want to hear.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
He exhales, long and slow, his gaze landing on the paint-speckled floor between us. “Sometimes knowing the truth doesn’t help. Sometimes it just… breaks what’s left.”
Something in his voice makes my skin prickle — not just the words, but the way he says them. Like he’s protecting me from something. Or himself.
“You’re telling me not to ask?” I say quietly.
“I’m telling you not to go digging for answers you won’t like.”
We stand there in the narrow space, paint drying on the walls, the air thick with things neither of us is saying.
Then Damien picks up his roller and turns back to the wall, effectively ending the conversation.
But the ache in my chest doesn’t fade. If anything, it lodges deeper.
By the time Ronnie’s boots thud up the stairs, the air between Damien and me has cooled just enough to feel… bearable. We’ve gone back to painting in silence, the earlier conversation tucked away but still pulsing beneath the surface.
Ronnie rounds the corner with a couple of supply bags swinging from his hands. “Got your damn painter’s tape,” he says to Damien, dropping it on the workbench.
“About time,” Damien mutters without looking up.
Ronnie ignores him, setting a bag down by my feet. “Also grabbed more sandpaper for you. Oh—and I ran into your brother.”
The roller in Damien’s hand stills. “Colton?”
“Yeah. Down by the marina. He was grabbing lunch with some guy from the team.” Ronnie’s oblivious to the way my stomach knots. “Said he’s in town for a few days. Didn’t know if you’d heard.”
Damien straightens slowly, his expression unreadable. “I hadn’t.”
Ronnie grins like it’s just a fun coincidence. “Guess you’ll be seeing him soon, huh?”
No one answers. The only sound is the faint drip of paint into the tray.
I can feel Damien’s tension from across the hallway — the shift in his shoulders, the way his jaw sets. My own heart is thudding too hard, because Colton showing up now? When the whole town thinks I’m dating his brother?
That’s not just bad timing.
That’s a lit match over gasoline.
Chapter Eight
Lyla
The closet is warm in that stuffy, swallowed-up way that makes sound cozy on a recording. My “studio” isn’t glamorous — an old laptop balanced on a TV tray, mic propped up between stacked paperbacks, two thick blankets pinned to the walls to keep the sound from bouncing.
Usually, once I close the door, the rest of the world blurs.
Not today.
I click record. “Welcome back to TheHart line. Today we’re talking about change — the kind you don’t see coming, the kind that—”
Damien’s mouth flashes in my mind, the heat of his hand against my cheek at the diner.
