“Didn’t practice it,” he says.
“Just thought it. Couldn’t stop it in time.”
He rubs his hand over his mouth,
his smile caught behind it.
“Sounded better once I saw what it did to your face.” His knee taps mine. “No regrets.”
My face is melting. Burning. Betraying me.
He leans in with a warm smile
and a deep stare.
“Truth?” he says low. “Soon as you turned around out there? I straight up blacked out. Saw your face, andboom—mind blank. Brain just bailed. Only thing left was—don’t fuck up, get to her before she leaves.”
I forget how to breathe,
forget how my fucking lungs work.
From the front seat?—
“You two are a good looking couple.”
Eddie tosses it out, invested now.
Andrew’s gaze holds mine.
“Damn right we are.”
“Make beautiful babies,” Eddie adds.
Andrew nods, serious.
“His tip just went up twenty percent.”
It’s been what—four minutes? Five tops.
My cheeks hurt. I don’t smile like this
unless I’m hiding behind it.
But this? This is different.
I’m in a cab, fully dressed, fully sober,
next to a guy who hasn’t even touched me.
And I’m already fraying at the seams.
His hand drifts across the seat,
the space between us suffocating him.
But just before the backs of his fingers brush my thigh,
he stops,
