We take our mugs back out to the patio. Everything is quiet, crickets humming in the wet grass, the lake shifting in the distance like a sheet of black glass. We sit on the step, shoulders brushing, pretending it’s casual.
It’s not.
She tucks her legs up beside her, warming her hands on the mug. “So,” she says lightly, “should we acknowledge the… thing that happened?”
“We just did,” I say. “With tea. Very British.”
She nudges me with her knee. “Seriously.”
I hesitate, then: “It wasn’t a mistake.”
Her breath catches, just barely. “No,” she says softly. “It wasn’t.”
“And it’s… been a long time since anything wasn’t.”
She turns her head toward me, eyes warm in the shadows. There’s no pity in her stare — which is good, because I’d walk straight into the bloody lake before accepting pity.
Just curiosity. Understanding. And something that feels worryingly like hope.
“It’s strange,” she murmurs. “You’re so guarded. So… locked up.”
I huff a humorless laugh. “You don’t say.”
“But with me?” She tilts her head. “Tonight felt like you let me see something real.”
I swallow hard. “Don’t get used to it.”
She smiles into her tea. “You’ll crack again. I can be very annoying.”
“That’s the problem.”
She bumps my shoulder with hers again — a small gesture, but it knocks something loose in me.
We drink in silence for a few minutes. Comfortable. Close. The kind of closeness I’ve avoided for years because it always led somewhere I wasn’t ready to go.
Now… I’m not sure what I am.
Finally, she sets her mug down beside her and looks at me again, all earnestness and quiet bravery.
“Ethan?”
“Mm?”
She lifts a hand and brushes a thumb lightly along my jaw — barely a touch, but enough to start my pulse up again.
“Can we… do that again sometime?”
I catch her hand gently, keep it there. “You have no idea,” I murmur. “How badly I want to.”
Her breath stutters. “Good.”
We sit like that, knees touching, hands entangled, the night wrapping around us like a secret.
And for the first time in years — maybe since before Mara, maybe since before the army, perhaps ever — something inside me feels unbearably, terrifyingly right.
Chapter 18
Lucky
