He stands, but he doesn’t crowd me. He watches me like he’s deciding whether to fight me on it.
“You want me to leave,” he says.
I give him my sternest look—the one I’ve used to shut down three separate bar fights and a would-be mugger in a Safeway lot. The look that says test me and you’ll regret it. For a second, I see him flinch. Or maybe I just want to see it. Either way, it works. There’s a flicker in his eyes. Not fear, not resentment. Something closer to respect. His mouth ticks up like he wants to laugh, but he clamps it down.
“Okay,” he says, without drama, without a trace of sarcasm. “I’ll go.”
He picks up his cup, swirls the dregs, and looks at it like he’s searching for a fortune in the foam. Then he sets it back down, hesitates, and says, “You staying here?”
The question hits wrong. Like hope. Like he wants me to follow him out.
I feel my chest flutter in a way that’s both infuriating and embarrassing. I clamp down on it hard.
“I’ve got studying to finish,” I say, even though we both know I’ll just sit here and stare at the table until the world rights itself again.
His gaze holds mine a beat longer than necessary.
Then he nods once and turns toward the door.
I watch him go, then sit back down without unpacking, just letting the air settle. There’s a girl at the counter now, ordering something with double syrup and a side of emotional support from the barista. The college couple in the corner has started holding hands under the table, their laptops forgotten, like maybe finals can’t touch them if they just hold on tight enough.
Evan disappears into the night.
I sit back down, open my notebook, and stare at the page without seeing a single word.
Because accounting isn’t the problem.
The problem is that for one dangerous hour, Evan Wilder made it feel easy to breathe.
And easy is how I get careless.
Chapter Eight
Evan
The cafe door swings shut behind me, and I’m spit out onto the sidewalk, beneath the halogen streetlights that make the parking lot puddles look radioactive. The night’s cold gnaws into me, all needles and damp, riding on the Ironwood Falls current of pine and wet river rock — a smell that’s supposed to remind me of childhood summers and hot engines. It’s a joke now; all it does is dial up the ache.
I walk to my car and every step feels wrong.
Because it’s not a bike waiting for me. It’s a sedan. The color is the worst kind of beige, a color that offends nothing and no one, a color that erases itself as it exists. It might as well be invisible.
I hate it, but I hate what it means more.
I open the door. The dome light flickers like it’s as tired of bullshit as I am, and the interior smells of cheap soap, worn seat foam, and a little sweat that isn’t mine. The seat tries to swallow me, but won’t succeed. I grip the wheel, and my hands whisper to my brain that they should be wrapped around rubber grips, that the only thing worth steering is a machine that could buck you off if you dared let your guard down. A bike demands honesty, even if everything else in life is a lie.
Instead, I’m caged in a car that feels like a lie. Just like the rest of my life at the moment.
I start it anyway.
The engine purrs like it’s proud of itself.
“Yeah,” I mutter to the dashboard. “You would.”
My phone buzzes halfway home.
Unknown number. Constant threat.
My spine tightens.
