She stopped near the parking lot, under a streetlight that cast everything in amber and shadow, turning to face me.
"Tonight was perfect," she said.
"It was."
She looked up at me, and the space between us felt impossibly small. Charged. Like the air before a storm when you could taste the electricity on your tongue and knew something inevitable was coming.
"Wyatt ..."
I stepped closer. Just a fraction. Just enough that I could smell her perfume—something light and sweet that made me want to lean in further, to close the distance entirely.
"Yeah?"
Her breath hitched. Her eyes dropped to my mouth, lingered there for a heartbeat too long, then back up to meet mine.
And then?—
13
SOPHIE
Ihad planned to kiss him.
I’d positioned myself just right—close enough that his warmth wrapped around me, angled so my face tilted naturally toward his. I could almost feel his lips. The brush of them. The soft press I’d been imagining since Juneberry, since the dock, since the moment I realized the past hadn’t stayed buried nearly as well as I’d thought.
My body knew exactly what to do.
My heart did not.
The second I lifted my chin, something inside me cracked open without warning. Not loudly. Not all at once. Just a sudden swell of emotion that rose too fast to stop—hot and sharp and overwhelming.
My eyes burned.
I sucked in a breath, tried to steady myself, tried to swallow it back.
Failed.
“Oh,” I whispered, horrified, as tears spilled anyway. “I’m—God, I’m so sorry.”
Wyatt froze for half a second—just long enough to register the shift—then his hands were on me. Steady. Grounding. One at my back, the other at my arm, warm and sure.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey. It’s okay.”
I shook my head, embarrassed, emotions tumbling out faster now that the door was open. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I swear I’m not trying to?—”
“Soph.” His voice dropped lower, calmer. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
But I wanted to. Or maybe I needed to.
I pressed my forehead to his chest, the tears coming freely now, my body betraying me in the most public way possible. The music from inside Dusty’s thumped faintly behind us, muffled by the walls. Cars passed in the distance. Life went on, oblivious.
Wyatt wrapped his arms around me fully then, enclosing me without hesitation. His hand slid up my back, slow and steady, like he wasn’t afraid of breaking me. Like he understood this wasn’t something to rush through or fix.
I clutched his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric. The moment felt absurd and intimate and unbearably safe all at once.
“I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” I said into his chest, my voice muffled. “I just—being with you like this—it makes everything come up. And I didn’t expect it.”
“That’s okay,” he said again, brushing his hand through my hair. “You don’t have to know yet.”
