The city outside is half-awake when I step onto the street. My heels click against the pavement, echoing too loud in the early quiet. I pull my coat tighter and open my phone.
The Uber app glows blue in the morning haze.
It feels like a walk of shame, but it isn’t shame that I feel.
When the car pulls up, I slide inside, sink against the seat, and watch the city blur by.
Chapter Six
GIDEON
The bed iscold when I reach over.
Too cold.
Her side’s still warm, the pillow dented, the sheet wrinkled from where she slept. She was here. I remember every second of her coming undone beneath my hands. And then, like always, she disappeared before sunrise.
I sit up, scrub a hand down my face, and stare at the faint imprint her body left on my sheets. Her perfume still hangs in the air, soft and warm, like vanilla and something darker underneath. It kicks at something in my chest I don’t want to name.
She thinks disappearing keeps things clean between us, that I won’t get attached. She doesn’t think I can share her, but I can and I will.
I check my phone. No message. No missed calls. Nothing.
“Of course,” I mutter. “Little Menace.”
I stand and stretch, muscles tight from sleeping in one position too long. I head straight into the bathroom and let the shower run hot. The water wakes me, but not enough to rinseher out of my head. I replay last night on a loop—her dress, her mouth, that look in her eyes when she told mesoonabout the other man. When I’m done, I pull on sweats and try to pretend like I washed her from my system. But I didn’t, and soon isn’t a real timeline.
Soon can stretch forever if you let it.
She has another guy outside the club now. A second life outside of Velvet that someone else gets access to. I don’t like that I don’t know who he is, if he is good enough for her, if he’s safe.
And that student from her TA class. The one who saw her at Velvet. He’s not my business, apparently.
But he will be if he keeps threatening my girl.
Terrific. I get to fight ghosts and boys.
I dry off and grab my phone again. One name jumps out.
Best Asshole
I smirk. The only correct way to label your best friend. Dominic, Silas, and I met and became friends in high school. Well, I was in eighth grade and they were freshmen. Gideon was my brother’s best friend and after he died, Gideo and I got closer—family that didn’t need blood to count.
I hit call and he answers on the second ring.
“Who died?” he asks without a hello.
“No one.” I grab a glass of water from the kitchen. “Not yet.”
“That sounds like you’re about to make sure someone does.”
I sigh. “She left before I woke up.”
A low whistle. “Again?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a pause like he’s picturing me pacing like a lunatic.
