“I’m not.”
“You are.” She kicks the door shut behind her with one heel and tosses her bag onto the armchair. “You’ve got your hood up and your face buried in that cushion like you’re trying to disappear.”
“Maybe I am.”
She lets out a long, theatrical sigh and drops down next to me, grabbing one of my feet and pulling it onto her lap like I’m her favourite problematic child she has no choice but to deal with.
“So… are you gonna tell me what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Cass.”
I groan into the cushion. “He kissed me.”
A pause.
“Shit. Like really kissed you? My brother? That brother?”
I lift my head just enough to shoot her a look. “Do you have another brother I don’t know about?”
“Well technically I have a half-brother but he’s gay and married and lives in New York so I doubt—” she cuts herself off. “Okay, no. Continue.”
I drop my head back onto the couch and groan again. “It was like—God, Lo. I don’t even have words for it. It was like being set on fire and loving the burn. He kissed me like he wanted to ruin me.”
Lola doesn’t say anything at first. She just traces slow circles along my ankle, like she’s grounding me while choosing her words.
Then she says softly, “That’s kind of his thing, Cass.”
I blink. Sit up straighter.
“What?”
She sighs—really sighs—like she’s carrying the kind of sibling knowledge that should come with a warning label.
“Dax doesn’t… feel things the way other people do. And when he does? It’s messy. Chaotic. It never ends well. Not for him. Not for the girl. Especially not for the girl.”
“But I’m not the girl, Lo,” I argue. “It was just a kiss.”
Her silence is louder than any shout.
Heavier.
Sharper.
I feel it like a fist in my chest.
“You think I’m wrong?” I whisper.
“I think,” she says carefully, “you’re already a little bit wrecked over him. And if that’s what one kiss did to you, imagine what the rest of him would do.”
I don’t have to imagine.
I know.
That’s the problem.
She sighs again, brushing her hair from her face. “He’s not a villain, Cass. But he’s not a hero either. He’s… broken. And dangerous when he forgets he is.”
