“Careful,” Sloane adds dryly. “We were about to start talking shit.”
“We were already talking shit,” Frankie corrects. “We just hadn’t gotten to Malachi yet.”
Knox raises an imaginary glass at Candace. “Glad you’re here.”
She hovers in the doorway, a ghost unsure whether it’s allowed to be seen. Then Ruby waves her over, totally unfazed.
“Get over here,” she says. “You look like you need carbs and bad decisions.”
Candace hesitates. Then she moves.
She slides into the open spot beside Ruby, who immediately tosses a blanket over her legs, a motion driven by muscle memory. Darla hands her a half-eaten bag of gummy worms without comment.
Candace stares at them for half a second before taking one. A silent truce. A quiet craving.
“She’s in,” Frankie declares, raising her drink. “Blanket privileges.”
“Took me three years to get one,” Nash mutters.
“That’s because you don’t talk,” East says. “And you stare like you’re planning murders.”
Nash lobs a pretzel at him without breaking eye contact.
Laughter ripples through the room—low and warm and real. Candace tugs the blanket tighter, wrapping it around herself as armor. Ruby leans against her. She doesn’t pull away.
She’s not relaxed… but she’s not bracing for impact anymore, either.
East nudges Darla’s knee with his under the table, almost absentmindedly. She flicks a glance at him, eyes narrowing, trying to figure him out, and failing. But her lips twitch, just barely, a hint she doesn’t mind the effort.
She glances at me for half a heartbeat.
It’s not a question or a warning. It’s something close to thanks.
I drop into a chair across the room, where I can see Candace. See all of them. I don’t say a word.
She didn’t run. She’s still here. That’s all I need to hold the line.
Chapter 27
Candace
Thelaughterfades,avinyl record spinning down—soft, slow, curling into the silence, smoke dissolving into air.
One by one, they peel off into the night. Frankie steals Ruby’s hoodie with a mischievous grin, and Nash slips away, a shadow that never needed announcing. Knox murmurs something against Sloane’s temple, guiding her half-asleep body down the hall. Even Darla throws me a lazy wave before disappearing, the damn popcorn bowl still cradled in her arms, a prize she earned.
Then it’s just me. The silence. And him.
The room stretches wide around me. Too open, too still. I’m wrapped in the blanket Ruby tossed at me, its weight a poor substitute for warmth, but my fingers stay tangled in the fleece, the only thing tethering me to this moment.
I won’t say it aloud, but I love how she fits here. Like she didn’t just wedge herself into my world. She built a nest inside it and dared me to call it anything but home.
A soft rhythm thrums beneath my fingertips just barely there. I don’t even realize I’m tapping it out. Not a song. Not yet. Just a heartbeat. Mine, maybe. Or something I haven’t named.
Malachi hasn’t said a word since we got back.
But I feel him. Sitting across the room, a thunderstorm with no rain. Charged, quiet, waiting. My skin still sings from the memory of his mouth, and there’s a stretch in my chest that feels split wide open, something inside me torn loose that never went back in place.
My shoulders rise in a breath I don’t remember taking. The fleece smells of sugar, cinnamon, and faint detergent. Ruby’s scent. Safe. But not enough.
