She watches me for a minute. Her expression shifts as if she’s working up the courage to ask something.
“Do you ever feel like people only see what they expect to?” she finally asks softly. “Like they miss the parts of you that matter most?”
The question hits hard.
I clear my throat. “Yes.”
Sally nods, holding my gaze. I can feel her gaze sliding overevery scar, every silence I’ve turned into armor. “Because I notice you, Nolan. I see the parts that others miss.”
“This isn’t about me,” I say.
“It can be,” she whispers.
I rake a hand through my hair. “You need to be careful, Sally.”
“Why?” she asks, eyes wide and fearless.
“You don’t—” I blow out a breath. “You don’t know what you’re inviting in.”
“Maybe I do.”
Silence throbs. Heavy and wanting.
“Sally,” I murmur, and her name tastes like surrender.
She leans forward slowly. “Nolan.”
I don’t remember deciding to move. I just… do.
One hand finds the back of her neck, fingers sliding beneath her hair. Her skin is warm. Alive.
“I’ve been trying not to want this,” I confess, resting my forehead against hers.
“Me too,” she breathes.
We don’t rush. It’s a slow collision. Gravity, not impulse. Our noses brush. Her lips barely graze mine, just enough to ruin me.
I pause, giving her the chance to pull back. She doesn’t.
She whispers against my mouth, soft and daring, “Drive me, Nolan.”
Everything inside me snaps.
I kiss her. Not like a mistake or a question, but like I’ve been waiting to feel like this, and she finally showed up.
Her mouth opens on a tiny, startled sound that makes my pulse slam as I deepen the kiss, discovering and claiming. She tastes like root beer and every soft thing I thought I didn’t deserve.
Her hand fists in my shirt. Not dragging me closer, just holding on. Like I’m her steady when the world tilts.
I cup her jaw with my other hand, thumb under her chin, memorizing the shape of her lips.
She trembles. Sighs into my mouth.
That does it.
Heat surges through me. I kiss her again, slower this time, lingering at the corner of her lips, breaking, returning, as if I’m learning her language and never want to speak anything else again.
I pull back to look at her. Kiss-swollen lips. Pupils blown wide. Breathing uneven.
