Daphne exhaled through her nose, dry and unimpressed. “No. Guys like him don’t say sorry. They act like it was a joke you didn’t get.”
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. My jaw clenched so hard it ached.
If I saw that guy again, it wouldn’t just be a punch.
I didn’t say that out loud, but I could feel the thought burning behind my eyes. Some people didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Some people needed consequences.
She must’ve noticed the shift in me because she glanced over.
“You don’t have to keep playing bodyguard, you know.”
“Didn’t say I was.”
She didn’t respond right away. Just kept looking at me, something unreadable in her expression.
And that silence between us? It changed. Tilted.
Still quiet. Still unspoken.
But heavier.
Softer.
Dangerous in a way I couldn’t name.
This wasn’t fake. Not right now. Not in the way she looked at me, or the way I suddenly couldn’t look away.
My fingers relaxed from the wheel, just barely.
“I don’t need protecting,” she added after a beat.
I nodded. “I know.”
But I still would.
Even if she didn’t ask.
Even if it made things messy.
Even if it ruined whatever this was turning into.
Because someone needed to have her back.
And I wasn’t sure I trusted anyone else to do it right.
Not anymore.
Chapter 9
Daphne
I woke up late, which was my fault, and then immediately proved it by checking my phone. Bad idea.
It was a small, panicked avalanche the moment my thumb unlocked the screen. Seven missed calls from Talia. Three from Mom. A voicemail from my producer that started with, “Call me. Now.” and ended with a string of breathless expletives that I didn’t need to hear before coffee. My screen was an illuminated bruise of red circles and numbers—notifications piling like unpaid bills.
Twitter had detonated overnight. My notifications were a fever dream: mentions, quote-tweets, threads. A dozen accounts I didn’t recognize had stitched my interview into memes. Someone had slowed my smirk to cinematic slo-mo and titled it “When you roast a man into retirement.” Another thread—800 comments deep—debated whether my line about “defensive fossils” was comedy or war crime. The hashtag at the top of the mess glittered like a target:
#StormWalker
