“You really don’t get home until what, six?” Alex asked at one point when Wyatt paused.
“Sometimes later,” he said. “It depends if the bus breaks down.”
Alex’s eyebrows rose slowly. “That happens?”
“All the time.”
He grimaced. “That’s brutal.”
Wyatt smiled in return. A real, actual smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and everything. It was a giant surprise to see said smile aimed at Alex, but by the time we got back to our house, I realized my shoulders didn’t hurt anymore.
I hadn’t even noticedwhenI’d stopped being on edge, but somehow, it had happened. Alex had won my brother over and, in doing so, lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Plus, I realized when Alex parked and cut the engine that by some miracle, I had even had fun with him tonight.
Wyatt was out of the car, hopping up the steps two at a time and already unlocking the door when Alex and I finally caught up. He looked at us over his shoulder, gaze skipping from Alex’s to mine.
“Night, Jane,” he said, then hesitated and glanced back at Alex. “Thanks for the food, man.”
“Anytime,” Alex said easily. “Good night, Wyatt. It was great to meet you. Congratulations again on the win.”
Wyatt grinned, giving him a bro-ish, chin lift of a nod before he disappeared inside and shut the door behind him. Suddenly it was just the two of us on the stoop, cold air settling into the quiet space Wyatt had left behind.
I crossed my arms, my nerves flaring up now that there was nothing else to focus on. “I should explain why I called you a friend.”
Alex leaned against the railing, his thumbs hooked casually into his pockets, but the rest of his hands were out. Unlike me, he was wearing his ring, the gold catching the porch light unapologetically.
“I hope I didn’t offend you,” I started, but before I could offer another word of the explanation I felt the need to offer, he shot me an easy smile and shook his head.
“I get it, Jane,” he said gently. “I meant that when I said it before. Don’t sweat it. Really.”
A long, slow exhale worked its way out of me. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s only our three-day anniversary.”
Despite myself, I laughed. Relief trickled through me that he wasn’t making a bigger deal of this than it needed to be. “Now that’s a romantic milestone right there.”
“Truly,” he deadpanned. “Paper gifts, right?”
I glanced down at my bare finger, heat creeping into my cheeks. I looked back up at him. “I wasn’t trying to hide you. I just?—”
“You’re protecting him,” Alex said. “And yourself.”
It shouldn’t have mattered so much that he really did seem to understand, but it did. As I averted my gaze to hide the sincerity of the emotions sliding through me, he chuckled. “Thanks for allowing me to crash your night.”
I offered him a slight nod, peering up at him through a few tendrils of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail throughout the evening. “You did good tonight. With Wyatt, I mean. He doesn’t usually open up like that.”
“I have practice,” Alex said. “When you have as many siblings as we do, you either learn or you kill them, right?”
“True.” I laughed, finally really looking back up into his eyes. “Thank you for coming, Alex. And for not making it weird.”
His gaze held mine, steady but unreadable. “I thinkweirdis kind of our baseline.”
I laughed again, the sound softer this time and slipping out before I could stop it. Alex smiled back at me, but it wasn’t his usual controlled, polished version.
Instead, it was slower, like it’d caught him off guard too, but then his gaze dropped to my mouth. Almost like his eyes had acted of their own accord. It was subtle. Barely a shift. But I felt it like a hand at my back or a pause in gravity.
His focus lingered there longer than was polite or safe, and for one suspended moment in time, neither of us seemed toremember how to move. I wasn’t sure, but I might’ve stopped breathing. Meanwhile, Alex looked dazed, like a thought had crossed his mind fully formed and entirely inconvenient, but he didn’t know what to do with it.
His jaw tightened and his shoulders squared, then he swallowed and I wondered just briefly what it would feel like if I leaned forward instead of back. If I closed the distance and let the question answer itself.
