“She read me,” Rayna murmured, gaze sliding toward the window glow. “Like a blueprint.”
“She reads everyone. Doesn’t always share the notes.”
Rayna angled toward me, eyes liquid in porch light, mouth soft. “You really think this isn’t too fast?”
“What, dinner?” My thumb traced her jaw.
“This.” She gestured between us. “Whatever we’re doing.”
“I think it’s honest. First thing I’ve done in a long time that doesn’t feel like managing. And—” I exhaled—“I don’t want to pretend I want less than I do.”
“How much do you want?”
“Enough to keep showing up. Enough to want you in rooms that matter. Enough to be patient with your fear and greedy with your time.”
Her eyes flared at greedy, softened at patient. She stepped in, chest brushing mine. “Kiss me.”
I did. Found her mouth like I’d been heading there all my life. Sweet with peach and sugar, soft but sure. Her hand fisted my shirt, telling me not to stop.
When we broke for air, I stayed close.
“You’re dangerous,” she whispered.
“So’s electricity,” I said. We smiled, tired of the metaphor, still believing it.
“Take me home,” she murmured, husky.
We told Grandma we were leaving. She hugged Rayna without warning, patted my cheek like I was twelve. Jada mouthed text me with eyebrows high.
The ride was silent but charged. Two blocks with both hands on the wheel before her hand slid to my thigh and cracked me open. I turned east toward her place.
We didn’t make it to the bedroom.
Chapter 15
Breaking Patterns
By Tuesday, the noise of the site should’ve smoothed me out—nail guns popping in the distance, hammers arguing, drywall dust floating like bad glitter, the bitter bite of burnt coffee in my thermos.
The boutique hotel on Penn was still bones in some parts. Open studs, conduit half-run, wires like veins waitingfor a heartbeat. And I couldn’t stop seeing what used to live here—vitality, houses, a place for people like me to call home. East Liberty was now cleaned up, branded, and flipped.
But Daddy had secured something big for his company and ultimately his family, and that meant I would give it my all. Every splice, every line, every switch I touched was his name on a wall. No room for sloppy.
Normally that calmed me. Strip, twist, cap. Pull clean. Test and test again. Check twice before the cut. The rhythm Daddy drilled into me when I was twelve in the basement—solder smoke curling while he balanced a penny on my bridge hand to make sure I kept it true.
But this week my hands might have been precise, but my head was full of Quentin.
Full of the moments we shared. The kisses, the fucking, the family time, the lessons, and the quiet. I’d never felt any of this… intensity. And a huge part of me wanted to call my mother just to ask why. Shawna was good for jokes and sounding boards, but this? This was varsity. All pro. Heavy-hitter love.
Love? I was thinking about love. Goodness.
I twisted two coppers, capped them, pushed the connection into the box. My gloves creaked. My focus strayed.
“You dreaming or working?” Jerome called from the next bay, drill whining as he seated anchors. Half mentor, half uncle, all trouble.
“Working,” I shot back.
He leaned, gave me that beard-tug smirk. “Could’ve fooled me. You grinning at that wire like it told you a joke.”
