No clue how the room shifted around her.
She didn’t need the noise.
She didn’t need the crowd.
She needed someone who saw her.
And he did.
Later,she and Penny stepped into the cool air of the night.
He stayed across the street.
Still. Watching.
Penny flagged down a car.
Horns cut through the wet air. Tires hissed across slick asphalt. Rain teased the edges of the sky.
But all he saw was Arden.
She laughed again, quieter now. Worn at the edges.
It hit him low, dull and certain.
She climbed into the car.
For one breathless second, she was framed in light—whole, ethereal, his.
And she was gone.
She hadn’t seen him.
She never did.
But that was all right.
Because one day, she would.
And when that day came?
There’d be no more distance.
No more shadows.
Only them.
?
The heavy bag rocked violently, metal clinking like it might give way. Gideon’s breath hitched, every muscle straining. Sweat slicked his skin, but he kept going.
He paused. That face in the mirror. Jaw set. Eyes like they hadn’t slept in weeks.
Colton’s smirk.
The tremor in the old woman’s hands.
The shuffle of a child’s sneakers on cracked pavement.
