I curl into myself, hands shaking, and close my eyes.
Is this anxiety? A delayed guilt response for letting him get too close? For letting myself fall back into something I know could break me?
Or is it something else?
Something worse?
The room feels too quiet. Too still.
What if this is my body trying to scream the truth that my heart isn’t ready to face?
I sit there for a long time, curled up on the bathroom floor, thinking about Knox.
About tonight.
About what it could mean if this isn’t just stress.
Because if it’s not?
Everything changes. Again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Knox
The morning hitsquieter than I expected.
Sunlight pours through the windows, catching on dust motes and the steam curling out of my coffee. Josie’s scent still lingers on my skin, like vanilla and sweat.
I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I dropped her off last night. Her breathless voice. The way she shook when she came apart for me. The part of me that came unglued right along with her.
I rub a hand over my jaw and shake it off.
Too early to start unraveling that.
Instead, I step outside with my coffee and find Jace already out in the yard, lazily tossing a football from hand to hand like he’s been waiting for me.
He smirks. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”
I grunt. “Morning to you too.”
“Late night?” He gives me a look. “You and Josie.”
“None of your damn business,” I mutter, but I can’t help the way my mouth tugs into something close to a grin.
He barks a laugh and tosses the ball to me. “That’s what I thought.”
I catch it with one hand, let it spin in my palm. The weight’s familiar. Comforting. The way it always is with Jace. He’s the only one from the old days who stuck. The only one who never asked for anything I wasn’t ready to give.
We start throwing. Easy, back and forth across the yard. Cold morning air in our lungs. The kind of quiet where you don’t need to fill it.
But of course, Jace fills it anyway.
“You ever think about what it would’ve been like if you’d never blown out your knee?” he asks. “Like… how different your life would be?”
I tighten my grip on the ball. Fire it back harder than necessary. “Not really.”
“Bullshit,” he mutters, catching it like it’s nothing. “You think about it all the time. You just don’t talk about it.”
