I look. I don’t even pretend not to.
She comes back with a bottle of water and perches on the arm of the couch—close enough that I can feel her heat but not touching. She takes a slow sip.
“You’re awake too,” she says.
“Yeah.” I drag a hand through my hair. “Head won’t shut off.”
“Thinking about the project?”
“Something like that.”
She sets the bottle down, fingers lingering on the glass. “What’s really wrong?”
Everything.
The bet. Isabelle. The lie humming between us. The fact that you’re standing here, trusting me with this quiet version of yourself.
The words stack up behind my teeth. I should tell her. I should stop this now.
But all I can see is her leaving.
So I don’t.
“You said you’ve never been on a date,” I say instead, my voice rougher than it should be. “That won’t leave me alone.”
Her brows lift slightly. “You make it sound tragic.”
“It kind of is.” Firelight flickers gold across her skin. “You’re beautiful. I can’t imagine no one’s noticed. Theo is a terrible fool, if you ask me.”
“You think I’m beautiful?” Her voice wavers on the last word.
Instead of answering, I sit up fully. The blanket slides into my lap. “If I ever took you out—if you let me—it wouldn’t be anything flashy,” I say. “Just a quiet dinner. Real food. Real conversation.” I glance at her hands folded in the sleeves of her hoodie. “Then maybe a walk somewhere dark enough to see the stars.”
She doesn’t interrupt.
“I’d want to hear you,” I continue. “All of you. Your synesthesia. Your parents. What makes you light up when you think no one’s watching.” My voice lowers. “And your favorite piece of music. The one you always come back to.”
Her breath catches, small and fragile. “‘Préludeàl’après-midid’unfaune.” Debussy.” She swallows. “It opens with a flute solo. My mother played it constantly when I was growing up.”
Recognition twists in my chest.
“Erin practiced that piece from the time she was sixteen,” I say quietly. “I heard it through her bedroom door so often I could hum the opening bars in my sleep.”
Wren stills. “Erin’s a musician?”
“Cellist,” I say.
“That’s what my mother was like.” Her voice thins. “Hours of the same bar until it was perfect.”
“Musicians,” I murmur. “They are relentless.”
“They are.”
A beat.
“She was.”
The past tense lands wrong. Too sharp for the quiet room.
