Before she turns away, I reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. The contact is brief. It’s enough.
“This is for the best,” I say quietly. “Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
She holds my gaze a second longer, like she’s memorizing my face. Then she turns and gets into her car. The door shuts softly.
I don’t move until her headlights cut through the alley and she pulls away.
Only then do I lean back against my car and close my eyes, breathing through the pressure crowding my chest.
I turn and drive my fist into the brick wall.
“FUUUCCCCCK.”
The word echoes down the empty alley, swallowed by the night.
NINETEEN
Coco
Frenchmen Street Music Scene:Frenchmen Street is known for its live jazz, blues, and funk music venues. Unlike the tourist-heavy Bourbon Street, Frenchmen offers an authentic local music experience, beloved by residents.
The streets are quiet,the city sliding past my windows in soft bands of light. The engine hums beneath me, steady and controlled, and my body is anything but.
There is still a low, restless awareness coiled between my thighs, an echo I can’t shake no matter how far I put between myself and him.
My hands stay firm on the steering wheel, but my thoughts drift back to the alley, to the hard line of Ridge’s car beneath my palms, to the way his mouth took mine as if he had already made up his mind.
The memory moves through me in waves. His weight, the certainty of him. The way my body answered without asking permission.
Something inside me finally clicked into place, something I did not know had been missing until it was suddenly there.
Every nerve stays awake, sharp and reactive, like my body is still braced for him to touch me again.
We did not want to leave each other. That much is obvious. He was the one who pulled me onto him, turned me, and pressed me against the hood of his car. His hands were firm on my hips, leaving no question.
But then he stopped. Ridge always does that. Grounds the moment and names the line just after we cross it.
If it were up to me, I would have said screw it and let everything else burn. He is not built that way.
“You need to get home,” he told me, his voice rough, his gaze steady even when his body was not. “Your father’s going to be waiting.”
He was right. My father gave me tonight, but that freedom came with limits. I had already stretched them thin. I do not let myself think too hard about what would happen if he knew what had really kept me out.
Still, I can’t help but think that Ridge didn’t shut the door. He could have. He should have.
Instead, he stood there, his words saying one thing while his body said another. I can’t stop thinking about the way his hand shook when he let go of me.
His restraint loops through my head as I drive. The way he stopped himself. The way it cost him. There was no denial in it, no pretending this didn’t matter. Just a line he forced himself to hold.
I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know what comes next.
But he didn’t walk away.
For now, that is enough to keep me breathing.
I turn onto St. Ann, the familiar streets guiding mecloser to home, my chest tightening as the reality of it all settles in. Before I get there, I need to say this out loud. I need a witness.
She answers on the second ring. “Coco?”
