The fork stabs the toast too hard. My pulse spikes. My whole body is begging to scream the truth, to run, but Dean shifts closer just enough that his thigh brushes mine under the counter. Invisible to her. Binding me silent.
Heat lances up my legs, the phantom ache of last night roaring back.
Kate doesn’t notice. She laughs, shakes her head. “God, you’d never survive one of his business parties anyway. Too many sharks.”
Dean sets his mug down with a soft click.
“Eat, Brooklyn.” His voice is calm, deadly quiet.
I obey, the bite turning to ash on my tongue, Kate watching me like she’s trying to piece together a puzzle she doesn’t even know exists.
And Dean? He just sits back, smirking behind his coffee, savouring the game.
Kate pushes her phone away at last, leaning forward on her elbows like she’s settling in to interrogate me.
“So,” she says, smirking, “what did you really get up to last night? You keep looking like a deer in headlights, Brook. Spill.”
I stab at my food, throat tight. “Nothing. Just… tired.”
Her brow arches. She doesn’t believe me. And then—then—Dean moves.
He leans past me to reach for the butter knife, his arm brushing against mine, his hand curling around the handle right by my plate. It’s a simple movement, ordinary enough, but his thumb presses against the inside of my wrist, firm, deliberate, just for a second.
The entire world freezes. My fork clatters against the plate.
Kate’s gaze sharpens.
“What was that?”
I jerk back, pulse thrumming. “What?”
“That.” She points at me, then at Dean. “The little… thing.”
Dean doesn’t so much as blink. He spreads butter across his toast, smooth, precise, like she’s invisible.
“There was no ‘thing,’” he says evenly.
Kate frowns. “No, I saw it. You touched her.”
Heat floods my cheeks. My lungs claw for air.
Dean finally looks at her, a smile ghosting his lips, cool and razor-sharp. “You’re imagining things, Kate.”
But the pressure of his thumb still burns on my skin, branding me, and Kate’s eyes narrow as she flicks between us—between my too-quick breath and his too-casual calm.
She doesn’t know. Not yet. But she’s close enough I can taste the blood in my mouth from biting down the truth.
Dean takes another slow sip of coffee, eyes never leaving hers.
“Finish your breakfast,” he says, soft, lethal. But the command isn’t for her. It’s for me.
And Kate’s silence tells me she knows it.
Kate’s fork scrapes her plate, loud and grating, like she’s cutting through my ribcage with it. Her eyes still lock on me, sharp enough to draw blood.
But then—she laughs. A short, dismissive sound that doesn’t quite reach her face.
“God, I really need sleep,” she mutters, shaking her head. “See? This happens when you spend too many nights in your dad’s creepy house. You see things that aren’t there.”
