In the bedroom, he collapsed onto the mattress face-down, arms spread, dramatic as ever.
“You’re impossible,” I said, laughing as I reached for the lamp.
I helped him sit up and started tugging at his pants, gently. He let me, eyes half-closed, a faint smile on his mouth.
Then suddenly his arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me down with him in one smooth motion.
I yelped, surprised, laughter bursting out of me as I landed beside him.
“Brandon!” I laughed. “I thought you were exhausted.”
He grinned, suddenly very awake. “I’m not sleepy anymore.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh? Then maybe we should finish the movie.”
He leaned in, his mouth brushing my jaw, then my neck. “I have something more fun in mind than that boring movie.”
I gasped. “How dare you. That film is a masterpiece.”
He laughed against my skin, kisses trailing higher, deliberately slow. “I’ll think of a way to make it up to you.”
I tried to protest, but it came out as laughter instead, especially when he found the spot near my neck that always made me squirm.
“Don’t,” I said, already smiling. “You know I’m ticklish.”
He absolutely did. And he didn’t stop.
Just warmth, laughter, and the quiet certainty that, in that moment, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
---
Chapter 43
Ethan
The question followed me all day.
It sat there, lodged somewhere between my chest and my throat, not loud enough to demand attention but heavy enough that I couldn’t forget it. I tried to ignore it the way I ignored a lot of things. By staying busy, by telling myself it didn’t matter, by reminding myself of what I’d already lost the right to ask.
It wasn’t my place. She didn’t owe me anything. I had no claim on her anymore.
I told myself all of that. Repeated it. It didn’t help.
Every time Claire passed me in the hallway, I noticed details I shouldn’t have been looking for. The faint marks at her collarbone that hadn’t been there yesterday. The way she moved, lighter, maybe, or maybe I was imagining it. The way she smiled when Lily showed her a new drawing, the way she leaned down and brushed hair out of her face like it was instinct, like she belonged here.
And every time, the same thought landed, unwelcome and persistent.
She’d gone out last night. With him.
By late afternoon, the house fell into one of those quiet pockets that only happened on Sundays. Lily disappeared into her room with her crayons and paper, shutting the door with the soft seriousness of someone deep in important work. Dad was outside, hunched over the garden, humming off-key as he pulled weeds and talked to himself. Mom sat under the oak tree with her cast propped on a cushion, book open but unread, soaking up the sun.
Claire was in the kitchen.
She stood at the sink, rinsing out Lily’s lunch container, sleeves pushed up, hair pulled back loosely. She moved like she’d done this a hundred times before, like this house knew her. Like it was normal for her to be here.
That realization hit harder than it should have.
I lingered in the doorway longer than necessary. I told myself I was just waiting for the right moment, but really, I was stalling. My heart was already picking up speed, uneven and sharp, like it sensed trouble before my brain did.
