“Anytime.”
“I should go. I’ve got an assignment due tomorrow.”
“All right. You’ll text me in the morning?”
“Yeah.” There’s a pause. “I love you.”
“I love you too, kid.”
The line goes dead and I stare at the phone in my hand for a long moment.
She’s not fine.
I could hear the weight she tried to hide under her casual responses.
Kia doesn’t call when things are easy. She calls when she’s scared.
I sink onto the couch. The leather creaks under my weight as I think of my sister in her cramped apartment a few hundred miles away, trying to hold herself together. I’ll text Hayes in the morning and see if he knows what’s going on.
It doesn’t take long for my mind to turn to Rina. If I know her, she’s probably busy convincing herself that what happened tonight was a mistake.
I open our text thread again and find my message staring back at me.
I was serious, baby. We’re not done.
I type another line beneath it.
You can fight it all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.
My thumb pauses over the send button before deciding to delete the message. I’ve pushed enough for one night. When the screen goes dark, I set the phone on the table and then cross to the dry bar, pouring two fingers of bourbon before lifting the glass toward the skyline.
“To sticking it out,” I mutter.
The first swallow burns going down.
The second one isn’t much better.
Outside, the city glows. In here, it’s just me and my own restless thoughts. Rina can lie to herself all she wants, pretending that what happened meant nothing.
But I meant what I said earlier.
We’re not done.
In fact, we’re only getting started.
23
Rina
I’m still out of sorts the next morning as I type a message in the group chat.
The memory of last night clings to me like a second skin that’s impossible to peel off.
Oliver in the bathroom.
The press of his hard body.
The warm scrape of his mouth against mine.
