“Maggie, enough,” I say, sharper than I meant. It lands hard. She glares at me. “Easy for you to say. You got the biggest share.”
“Children,” Dad snaps, tired. “Ralph, continue.” And just when I think it can’t get worse— “Larna left a letter and a box. For Olivia.”
We all turn. She’s on her phone, half-distracted, until the attorney hands them over. Her hand trembles as she tucks them into her coat. Her mom rests a hand on her back. I can’t stop staring. A letter makes sense. She was close to Mom. But the box? What the fuck could be in that box? The size is strange; it is not big enough to be a present, but not small enough to be a key or a piece of jewelry.“Another secret,” Maggie mutters. The attorney continues reading and discussing some technicalities, but I’m not listening.
Olivia’s phone buzzes. She rises. “I’m sorry, I need to take this.” And then steps out of the office. Ten seconds later, so do I. She’s on the back of the hallway next to the back door, pacing, voice sharp. “No, Gloria, I told you what to say. Don’t fuck this up. Go back inside and fix it.” She turns when she hears me, and for a second, just a second, everything around us goes still. Her phone’spressed to her ear, her voice mid-sentence, but the second our eyes meet, she freezes. Whatever she was saying dies in her throat. A tiny flick of her thumb, and the call ends. “Everything okay?” I ask. My voice comes out lower than I intended.
She lets out this laugh, if you can even call it that. It’s brittle, nervous, the kind that hides something heavier underneath. “Yeah. Work’s a mess.”
“Work’s always a mess,” I say, because it’s the safest thing to say. Still, I can’t help the small chuckle that follows. My way of easing the moment or pretending I can. I step closer. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel it, that faint shift in the air, that static. She leans back against the railing, crossing her arms like a shield. The wind lifts a few strands of her hair, and I have the sudden, ridiculous urge to tuck them behind her ear. “You didn’t have to follow me.” She says as she leans on the railing.
“I know.” But I did anyway. I’d seen her walk out, seen that flash of her shoulders tightening the way they always do when she’s trying to hold it together. And something in me, an old habit, a bad instinct, made me do it.
Her eyes flick to mine, cautious, curious. There it is again,the pull. That quiet gravity that’s been screwing with me since the first time I met her. “You look like you want to say something,” she says softly.
“I do.” My jaw tightens. I drag a hand across the back of my neck, trying to find words that won’t make things worse. “ButI shouldn’t.”
She tilts her head, the corner of her mouth twitching — half challenge, half defense. “Try me.” My eyes drop to her mouth before I can stop them. Fuck. Those lips. They were the death of me once. The soft that ruins a man’s sense of direction. And for some reason, some stupid, masochistic reason, they still are.
I swallow, jaw tight. “I want to kiss you.”
Her breath catches, that small, broken sound that hits harder than it should. “Ethan?—”
“I told you I shouldn’t say anything.” Her mouth opens like she wants to answer, but the words don’t come. Instead, she straightens, crossing her arms again, a wall made of nerves and denial. “You can’t do that,” she says finally, but it’s barely a whisper. A plea more than a command. “I know.” I should stop. I should walk away and pretend I didn’t just throw gasoline on everything we’ve been pretending to keep under control. But I don’t move. My body doesn’t listen. It never does around her.
I take a step closer. Close enough to feel her breath hitch, to see the tiny pulse at her throat. My heart’s hammering like I’m eighteen again and making all the same mistakes.
“The other night,” she says quietly, eyes flicking to mine and then away, “the way we talked… it felt like we crossed a line.” She gestures between us, this invisible, electric space we’ve been orbiting for days. “This—this has to stop.” Her voice cracks just a little on stop, like she doesn’t quite believe it herself.
“I know,” I say again. It’s the only thing I can say that doesn’t betray how much I don’t mean it. She stares atme, jaw tight, eyes shining with something I can’t understand. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. “You’ve got a wife. Kids. A family.”
Her words slice clean through the haze. “And you’ve got a husband and kids.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Are we just trading facts now?”
She shakes her head, jaw tight. “I’m just trying to stop this before it turns into something.” I swallow hard. My throat feels dry. “I think we passed that already, Liv.” The way she flinches at her own name, like hearing it from me is too much, tells me I’m right. I need to stop. She needs to stop me before I do something I can’t take back.
“No, we haven’t, Ethan.” Her tone wobbles, trying for firm and missing by an inch. “This is just a memory.” Just a memory, my ass. My heart’s beating like it didn’t get that memo. But her hands are trembling, fingers twisting in the edge of her sleeve, and something inside me slips its leash. I move closer—just a fraction, just enough to feel the heat off her skin. Because apparently, I’ve lost my mind. “You don’t believe that,” I murmur. Her eyes flick to mine, wide and unsteady. “You’re standing too close.”
“You haven’t moved.” Her lips part. That tiny breath she takes burns straight through me. “Don’t.” The word’s a whisper, fragile as glass. “I’m not doing anything,” I lie, because standing this close is already too much. My fingers brush her arm, light, almost accidental, and she gasps. “You just touched me.”
“And you still haven’t moved away.” She does then,half a step back until her shoulders meet the wall. I follow without meaning to, hands braced on either side of her, caging her in. Her breath catches. Mine matches it. She is nervous.
“You’re still dangerous, Olivia, I mean it,” I say quietly. The truth sits between us, heavy and alive. I shouldn’t kiss her. God, I know I shouldn’t. This will fuck everything if I do. But she’s looking up at me like she remembers exactly how it felt the last time, and that memory is its own kind of gravity. I tell myself I need to know, I need to see if she’ll stop me. And then I lean in, slow enough to give her every chance to pull away.
She doesn’t. So, I kiss her.
The kiss hits like a fuse, the heat, the confusion, all the time we’ve spent pretending this wasn’t inevitable. It’s rough, hungry, the kind that burns through good sense before you can remember why you had it.
Her hands clutch at me, nails digging into me through fabric, pulling me closer instead of pushing me off. I can taste everything we shouldn’t be. My hands are all over the place, on her waist, her thigh, her hair. She gasps, and I can’t stop. Fuck I don’t want to stop.
I press her back against the wall, not hard, just enough to feel her heartbeat against mine. The sound of it is chaos. Her legs shift, parting just enough. I should pull her skirt up and touch her. I bet she is wet right now. No, Ethan, don’t. Instead, my mouth finds her neck, and she moans.
Then, somewhere down the hall,voices. A door creaks.
“Fuck.” We break apart, gasping like we’ve just surfaced from underwater. Her hand is still clenched in my shirt, my palms still on her body, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves. We stare at each other. She looks wrecked, lips swollen, eyes wide with the kind of panic that only comes after wanting something you know you shouldn’t. I’m not any better.
She smooths her skirt down with shaking hands, pushes her hair behind her ear, and forces her breathing to slow. She finally looks up at me, and everything in that look says we can’t do this again, but also, we might. Then she turns and starts walking toward the office, back straight, every step precise, like nothing happened.
I follow her anyway, because I don’t know what else to do.
