He enters me and I arch, breath punching out, vision going white at the edges as stars explode behind my eyelids. He moves and I move with him, unhurried but full of want, savoring every second because we both know this is stolen, borrowed, precious. His hand finds mine and laces our fingers together, holds on tight.
Heat builds low in my belly, tension winding tighter and tighter until it's everywhere—in my thighs, my spine, radiating out through every nerve ending. His name on my lips, his breath in my ear, the stars spinning overhead as I break apart, shaking and gasping with his hand holding mine through all of it. He follows right after, my name rough on his tongue, and I feel him shudder, feel him let go.
In the aftermath I stay tangled around him with my palm flat on his chest feeling his heartbeat slow, my head tucked against his shoulder. I trace patterns on his skin—the ink, the scars, the places where he's put himself back together piece by piece. Safe here. Whole here.
"Whatever happens—"
He presses a kiss to my hair. "I know."
We don't finish it, just hold each other longer and steal these last minutes of peace while we can.
Eventually he shifts and reaches for our clothes. "We should head back."
I nod even though everything in me wants to stay here under the stars where nothing can touch us. We dress in comfortable silence with hands brushing as we help each other with buttons and zippers, the kind of small gestures that shouldn't matter but do. He folds the blankets while I climb into the cab, and when he slides behind the wheel his hand finds mine again automatically, like we've been doing this for years instead of weeks.
The drive back is quiet with stars overhead blazing now and the desert dark and vast around us. His thumb moves over my knuckles in that steady rhythm that's become familiar and I try to hold onto the feeling—the peace, the stars, the way he makes me feel like I can face this.
But the closer we get to the shop, the tighter my chest gets. The harder it becomes to pull in air. The shop lights appear first, bright against the darkness. Then the shape beside Finn's truck.
Rental sedan.
My stomach plummets—doesn't drop, doesn't sink, it plummets. Falls through the floorboards and through the earth and keeps falling. I can't breathe. Can't move. Everything goes sharp and bright and too much all at once.
"Holt—" His name comes out strangled.
He sees it. His hand squeezes mine hard enough to hurt, grounding me even as terror floods back sharp and vicious.
"I've got you."
He pulls up beside the sedan and it's empty, he's inside, already inside with no buffer or transition or time to prepare.
Holt kills the engine and turns to look at me. His eyes cut through the fear, steady and certain. "You ready?"
I take a breath and it shakes going in. Think of the stars and what I said up on that cliff—staying is braver than running.Think of his hand in mine. Think of choosing this, choosing to face it instead of disappearing like I always do.
"Yeah." My voice only shakes a little. "I'm ready."
We get out together and I can see movement through the shop windows—Finn's bright energy and someone else, someone taller and sharper and familiar in all the wrong ways, in ways that make my skin crawl and my heart race and every instinct scream run.
But I don't run.
My heart's pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat but my feet keep moving forward. Holt's hand finds mine one more time before we reach the door and I squeeze back, holding onto him and my choice and the girl who watched the stars and decided staying was brave.
We walk inside together.
Chapter 20
Holt's hand is warm in mine. We walk into the shop together and the cliff's still there—behind us, in my chest, everywhere—the sunset and the kiss and the way he looked at me like I'm something he wants to keep.
Then I see Finn at the front desk. And the man standing beside him.
No.
"Scout—" Finn starts, but I've already frozen. Already seen him.
Evan.
Button-down drenched at the collar—he doesn't belong in this heat. Khakis that look stupid in a garage. Those polished shoes catching the overhead lights like he's at a fucking corporate mixer instead of standing in my space, my life, the place I rebuilt without him. That smile on his face. The one that used to confuse me—made me feel protected and small at the same time—but now I just see the small part. Now I see what it was always doing.
