He blinks. “What?”
“I’m not sorry.” And before I can talk myself out of it, before my brain can catch up with what my heart is doing, I grab the front of his T-shirt, the fabric soft and warm under my fingers, and kiss him back.
And this time, when he makes a sound, it’s not an apology.
His arms go around me, pulling me closer, one hand sliding into my hair, the other pressed against the small of my back. I can taste wine on his lips, and his stubble is rough against my skin in the best way, and?—
He pulls back again, but this time he doesn’t apologize. He just looks at me, his forehead resting against mine, both of us breathing hard. His hand is still in my hair, fingers tangled in the strands.
“I have to tell you something,” he says, his voice rough. He lifts his head off mine and the cold rushes in.
“Okay.”
“I—”
But then he goes still. His whole body just…stops. He’s looking over my shoulder at something, and his expression changes—from open and vulnerable to closed and tense in the space of a heartbeat.
His hand falls away from my hair. The arm around my waist loosens.
“What—” I start, but he’s already stepping back.
“I’ll walk you to your hotel,” he says, and his voice is different. Distant. Polite.
“What? Why? Did I—is something wrong?”
“No, it’s just—” He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at whatever he saw, and his jaw is tight, a muscle jumping there. “It’s late. You should get back.”
“Brody—”
“Come on.” He takes my hand—but it’s different now, perfunctory instead of intimate—and starts walking.
And just like that, the evening is over.
We leave the plaza, stepping into one of the narrow streets that branch off into the Gothic Quarter. The street is darker here, lit only by occasional streetlamps that cast pools of yellow light with long shadows between them. The buildings press close on either side, their balconies overhead creating a tunnel effect. Laundry still hangs from some windows, ghostly white in the darkness.
The air is cooler, almost cold now, away from the plaza—the stone walls holding on to the chill. It smells like old stone and dampness and faint cigarette smoke from somewhere nearby.
Our footsteps echo on the uneven cobblestones—my sandals making soft scuffing sounds, his sneakers a dull thud. The rhythm is wrong, out of sync.
And it’s silent.
Painfully, awkwardly silent.
I don’t know what happened. One second we were kissing and everything was perfect, and the next, he saw something and shut down completely.
“Brody,” I try again, my voice small in the quiet street. “What just happened back there?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
“It’s clearly not fine. You just—you went from kissing me to looking like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
Tired. Right. Yes. Me too…No, I’m not. I’m so unbelievably awake, there’s no way he’s tired.
“If I did something?—”
“You didn’t do anything.” His voice is still polite, still distant. Like we’re strangers. Like we didn’t just spend the entire evening together. Like he didn’t just kiss me like I mattered. “I just think we should call it a night.”
