Her gaze flicks up, sharp. “Usually exhausting.” She looks away, her voice a near-whisper when she adds, “God, it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed.” The words land heavier than they should, a crack in her armor that makes my chest ache. She sets the shot down, pushes it away. “Some things never change.”
I swallow. The words stick where they shouldn’t. I shift closer, only a breath away. Her perfume isn’t sweet. It’s clean and sharp, citrus that cuts through the smoke. “You came back,” I say.
“To see Frankie.”
“Sure.” I tip my chin toward the room. “Tell yourself that.”
“Why did you step in?” she asks, her voice all business.
“Because he was about to be stupid.”
“Then let him.” She looks up, and the mask slips for a second. A tremor of hurt in the set of her mouth. “You don’t get to pick when I need saving.”
“I know.” The words are raw, a confession. “I know.”
Her throat works. Our shoulders are close enough that the fabric of her tank skims my arm when she breathes. The room recedes until I can hear her inhale, the tiny catch on the exhale as if she’s holding herself together by the edges.
“Do you remember prom?” she asks so quietly I almost miss it.
My breath hitches. Every fucking second. “Every mile,” I say.
That stops her. She looks at me as if I’ve said something I shouldn’t have. Maybe I have.
“Fresh air,” I tell myself more than her. “This place is a furnace.”
She slides off the stool and lets me lead the way down the short hallway, past the framed photos of fallen brothers, to the back exit that sticks in summer. The night air doesn’t hit so much as it settles. It’s a heavy, humid blanket that does nothing to cool the furnace in my chest. The only sounds out here are the frantic chirping of crickets and the low, angry buzz of the club’s neon sign out front. Its sick, red glow bleeds around the corner of the building to paint the alley. I hold the door with my palm so it doesn’t slam.
She leans against the brick and tips her head back. The security light paints her hair pale silver. For a long moment, she just stands there, her eyes closed, breathing. She’s pretending I’m not here. Or maybe wishing I wasn’t. I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest, the pulse beating in the delicate skin of her throat.
“I’m not here for you,” she says into the dark, softer now. “I don’t want this to get confused.”
“Too late,” I say, because lying feels worse. “It was confused seven years ago.”
Her eyes snap open. “Then un-confuse it.”
“I’m trying,” I say, and I mean it like a confession.
The silence stretches, loaded with the weight of seven years of unspoken words. My brain cycles through the exits, and none of them let me breathe. I put my hand on the wall near her shoulder. Not touching. Just close enough to feel the body heat pulsing off her like a warning.
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t flinch. Her gaze drops, and she watches my mouth. It’s not on purpose. It never is. The body reacts when it desires what it shouldn’t. The air crackles, the space between us shrinking until it’s nothing but a single, charged inch.
A siren wails somewhere far off. Tires hiss on the street. The club music thumps through the wall.
“I shouldn’t want to kiss you,” I say, and the words come out rough, scraped raw from my throat. I take a breath deep enough to hurt, waiting for sanity to show up. It doesn’t. “But I do.”
Her breath stutters, a tiny, almost inaudible sound. “Then don’t.”
I lean in anyway, a hair’s width, my control fraying. Her scent—that sharp citrus and something else, something just her—fills my head. Her lips part slightly.
And memory slams me.
Gravel under my knees. The metallic taste of blood in the back of my throat. His last breath, a wet, rattling sound against my ear. A vow I can’t put down.
My hand curls against the rough brick until the grit bites into my palm. The sharp pain is a necessary, violent anchor. My jaw locks until I taste copper. Control’s a punishment I keep giving myself. I stop. My entire body goes rigid with the effort. I stop because stopping is the only thing I can give him that counts.
Her fingers lift as if she’s going to touch my chest. They hover in the charged space between us, trembling slightly. Then they fall.
“You make a mess,” she says, her voice a quiet accusation.
