Heat creeps up my neck just thinking about it. “Wekissed. God, Del. It was hot. Unhinged. Like neither of us had any business stopping.”
“And he did,” she says.
“Yes.” The word comes out tight. “He stopped it. Said we couldn’t. That it was for the best.”
“And that scared you.”
“Yes,” I say, without hesitation. “Because it wasn’t just physical. If it were, I could deal with that.” I shake my head. “It mattered. To both of us.”
“That’s the part that ruins everything,” Delphine says quietly.
“I know.” My chest tightens as I take the turn toward home. “He made himself walk away. Made me leave. Even though I didn’t want to. Even though I don’t think he did either.”
“Did he apologize?”
“No,” I say. “But he looked like it cost him. Like it hurt to say it out loud.”
There’s a pause. I let the silence stretch.
“And now?” she asks.
“I want to be with him,” I say. “He’s right about the risks. His world. My father.”
“Yeah, he is, Co.”
“What happens if this turns into something people can use?” My grip tightens on the wheel.
“You’ve always said you don’t want that world,” she says. “Do you really want to invite it in?”
“Walking away is just as dangerous.”
She exhales softly. “That sounds like you already know this isn’t going to be clean, no matter how it ends.”
“I know,” I say. “I just don’t want it decided for me.”
“Are you going to tell Laurent?”
“Hell no,” I say immediately. “I need a second wherethis is mine. Where I get to figure out what it is before he turns it into leverage.”
Delphine hums under her breath. “Then you shouldn’t rush it because you react emotionally.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
“Good,” she says. “Keep your footing. Don’t let it drag you somewhere you can’t get back from.”
The words settle in, not comforting, but steadying.
“I can do that,” I say. “For now.”
The iron gateat Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 closes behind me with a dull, final sound. The noise of the street drops away.
I slow without thinking about it. It calms me here, always has. My shoulders ease. My breathing evens out.
No one asks who I belong to or what side I’m on. The names carved into stone don’t care who my father is or who I kissed last night. They don’t react. They just stay.
The raised tombs cast long shadows across the paths, the late-morning sun still low enough to give everything definition. Names and dates are carved into weathered granite, their edges softened by time. Proof that everyone ends up reduced to the same two lines, no matter what they were in life.
This place has always been ours. Mine and Iggy’s. A place that doesn’t take sides in a city that loves to divide people into winners and expendables. Here, no one is special.
