“How dreadful.”
“The worst.” She laughs, dispelling some of the tension charging the air.
A cold draught cuts through the alley, and I wish I had a jacket to offer her. As the minutes pass, water spilling from the awning and splashing back from the pavement onto our feet, Lily-Anne inches closer, hugging herself. We’re shoulder to shoulder, pressed close enough that our damp sleeves touch.
“You’re shivering,” I murmur, turning slightly towards her.
She forces a smile, teeth chattering. “Y-yeah. I’ve always been a sookwhen it comes to the cold.”
“A what?”
“You know. A c-c-cold frog.”
I press my lips to hide my smile. More Aussie slang I don’t understand.
Even here in the shadows, her face is highlighted by lamplight, her cheeks flushed pink.
My hands lift instinctively—to draw her in, provide body heat—but I stop short, my fingers barely whispering against her shoulder before hovering uselessly in the air between us.
She peers at me in confusion through rain-speckled lashes.
For a heartbeat, the world stills.
I glance at her lips briefly, then avert my gaze.
No. There are lines I cannot cross. Not without making her situation uncomfortable.
She’s just been through a breakup, the wake of it fresh enough that the edges look raw. Yet I’m caught in her gaze, my foolish mind suddenly contemplating tiny, impossible gestures. Like the way my thumb could sweep along her jawline, brushing away the crystal-like droplets clinging there. Or the slow tuck of a rain-soaked strand behind her ear. The way my gaze would inevitably fall, just like it is now, to her lips—wet, rosy, parted in surprise.
Alarm bells ring in the back of my mind, but I cannot look away, my head tilting a fraction closer.
I freeze.
I’m too old for her. What would Jeremy think of me, to look at his younger daughter this way, when he trusted me?
Lily-Anne’s eyes drift partially shut, her lips parting slightly as she tips her chin up a fraction.
She doesn’t move closer. Nor does she pull away.
And I want to.
Time stands still. The only sound is the hammering rain and the blood rushing in my ears.
And then another sound threads through the storm: Nova’s voice, unsummoned and unwelcome, cutting through me like a knife.
“Hold me like a pretty ribbon, soft in your hands.”
It’s Nova’s voice. But she’s not just in my head. The sound comes from…
I force a step back, heart pounding in my chest, the space betweenLily-Anne and me cold and necessary. My head darts left and right down the alleyway, searching, half-expecting to see Nova’s ghost, or a puff of cigarette smoke, or a defiant smirk belied by wounded eyes.
But she’s not there, imagined or otherwise.
Yet the music playing is real, the deep bass thrumming in my chest with every beat.
Did I imagine it? Her voice, smouldering and fragile?
Lily-Anne stares at me in concern. “Brandon? What’s wrong?”
