He winces. “I wasn’t going to?—”
“I know you were,” I say. “You think falling apart makes you weak. It doesn’t.”
He finally looks at me, and the full force of that wounded loyalty hits like a punch to the sternum. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just… thanks for not letting me drown yesterday.”
“You weren’t drowning,” I whisper. “You were human.”
I pull out of the parking lot, and he watches me instead of the road—one of those moments that shifts something neither of us is ready to admit.
The closer we get to campus, the quieter he becomes. Not the broody, mysterious quiet he sometimes wears like a second skin. This is the brittle quiet—the kind that means he’s thinking himself in circles and losing every round.
I pull into the parking lot, sliding into an open space near the back where the trees hide half the view. I shift the car into park, but don’t turn off the engine yet. He’s staring at the windshield again, jaw tight, fingers twitching on his thigh.
“Talon,” I say softly.
“I owe you an apology.” His voice is low. “For… a lot of things.”
“Which things?” I ask carefully.
He laughs once—sharp, cracked at the edges. “All of them? The way I acted. The shit I said. Threatening to go to your dad.” He shakes his head, disgust twisting his mouth. “That was….fuck, Penelope. That was fucking low.”
“It was,” I agree, because pretending otherwise would insult both of us. “But it was also want. And want makes people cruel when they don’t know what to do with it.”
His breath stutters. Not in panic—in recognition.
“Don’t,” he mutters, eyes snapping to mine. “Don’t make it sound better than it was.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m making it accurate.”
He looks away fast, jaw tight, throat working. “I wanted you. And it pissed me off. I’m not used to wanting something I can’t have. And you—” He huffs, frustrated. “You shut me down like it was nothing. Like one word from you, and I didn’t know my own fucking body anymore.”
Heat curls low in my stomach.
“Talon…”
He presses on, voice rougher now. “You touched my body that night for half a second, and I swear to God I forgot my own name. You said no, and every part of me listened like I had no choice.” His hand fists on his thigh. “I wanted you, and you held the reins. No one’s ever done that to me.”
Silence fills the car because for the first time in maybe my whole life… I’m speechless.
“I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” he says finally, looking down at his hands like they might admit something he won’t. “I shouldn’t’ve talked to you like that. I shouldn’t have used your dad. That was me being pissed at myself, not you.”
“That,” I say softly, “is the truth.”
He nods once, jaw trembling just enough to show the crack. “You didn’t deserve it. Not the threats. Not the tone. Not the bullshit power play.”
I watch him—this hard-edged, sharp-mouthed boy who can’t hide the cracks I’ve already seen. “No,” I say. “But you’re here. And you’re owning it. That matters.”
His breath shivers out of him.
“I don’t know what you did to me,” he whispers, voice frayed. “But you said one word, and I broke. You kissed me and I melted. You blew a breath on my cock and—” He cuts himself off, cheeks flushed, mortified. “Christ, I came undone like some inexperienced idiot.”
My pulse spikes.
“Talon.” It comes out lower than I mean it to.
“I didn’t mean the shit I threw at you,” he says, voice raspy. “I meant… I didn’t know how to be around you without losing my grip.”
“And now you’re trying,” I tell him. “That’s what I care about.”
