“Did you even read the fine print on page five?” she mutters.
“I skimmed.”
“Isaiah.”
I grin. “You only use my full name when I’m in trouble or when you’re about to kiss me.”
She slams the folder shut, storms over, and kisses me. Hard.
It’s not polite. It’s not clean. It’s hands in hair, lips biting back the years we spent pretending we were just friends. Her jacket falls halfway off her shoulder, and I grip the curve of her waist like it’s mine because it is. It always has been.
When we finally break, she whispers against my mouth, “You scare me, you know.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I love this version of you. The one who fights clean in a dirty world. And I’m terrified what that world might do to you.”
I press my forehead to hers. “Then stay close.”
“I already am.”
The weeks stretch long. I’m buried in legal red tape, protecting this club like it’s my own blood because it is. Rock becomes my shadow. I teach him how to file while he teaches me how to see the fight coming before it lands.
But Aria… she’s the only thing that quiets my head.
Sometimes she shows up with coffee and sarcasm. Sometimes with nothing but silence and the weight of her hand on my shoulder. On the bad days, she sleeps on the leather couch while I write until dawn. On the worst days, she sleeps in my bed, half dressed, fully tangled in me, skin to skin like she’s anchoring me to earth.
It starts in silence. No sparks. No games. Just the quiet sound of her knocking once on the bedroom door before slipping insidelike she’s done it a hundred times. Like she knows she doesn’t need to ask.
The hoodie she’s wearing isn’t hers. It’s mine. Faded and stretched at the sleeves. Her long, dark hair is loose down her back, and her eyes, those razor-sharp blues, are softer in the low light.
I sit at the edge of the mattress, head bowed, fists pressed into my knees. The war in my chest won’t stop. My name’s stitched into a patch I haven’t earned. There’s something wrong with my Dad. I see it in the way he holds his breath, like he’s trying to hide from the world. The way his eyes glaze over like he’s remembering things he doesn’t want to. The club is watching me like they already know I’ll take the throne.
But right now, all I can feel is her.
Aria doesn’t say anything at first. She just walks over and eases the hoodie up over her head, slow and certain. No lace beneath it. Just skin. Warm and real and bare. She slides under the blanket beside me and pulls my hand to her ribs.
“Lie down,” she whispers.
I do.
Her body curves into mine like she was always meant to fit there. My arm wraps around her waist, hand splayed across her stomach. Her back presses against my chest. Her thighs tangle with mine. I breathe her in, vanilla and law books and whatever makes her Aria and no one else.
She reaches down and laces her fingers with mine, where they rest against her.
“I hate when you shut down like this,” she says softly, voice almost lost in the dark.
“I don’t mean to.”
“I know,” she breathes. “But I can feel it when you vanish in your head. And it scares the hell out of me.”
I bury my face in her neck. “He’s slipping, Aria. And there’s nothing I can do. I’m not ready to lose him.”
Her grip tightens on my hand. “You don’t have to be ready,” she murmurs. “Just don’t go through it alone.”
I shift, needing to see her. I roll her onto her back, hover above her, and study her face in the moonlight leaking through the blinds. Her eyes shimmer like they want to cry, but she doesn’t.
Neither do I.
