He stands, slow, giving me time to calculate the variables and decide if I want to bolt. I should. I always do. Instead, it’s like there’s a magnet in my chest and he’s wearing a whole hell of a lot of iron.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Okay.”
We leave the booth together. My boots hit the scuffed linoleum in time with his. The overhead lights hum, and the bookstore’s main drag looks impossibly long. We pass the grad students, still arguing about a woman named Sappho and something about islands. The smell of old paper and coffee is so strong I want to drown in it.
Evan’s hand brushes the small of my back — not touching, just close enough for the air to buzz. I tense, but he doesn’t press. He walks just behind me, letting me steer. It’s annoying and sweet at the same time. At the door, he reaches past me to push it open, and the cold hits my face like a baptism.
I stop in front of him, close enough that his gaze drops to my mouth like it’s a reflex.
My “no way” rule kicks up in my chest, sounding loud, sharp, familiar: no relationships; no attachment; no men who make you forget you’re supposed to be careful.
I swallow hard. “Hey.”
His eyes lift to mine. “Hey.”
I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at soft. I’m not good at asking. I’m not good at wanting. All those things that mean letting someone in, letting down my guard, letting people see the person inside of me that doesn’t always have it together, that doesn’t always run the room — or the bar — with perfect command, scare the living bejeezus out of me.
“I have a surprise for you,” I blurt.
His brows rise. “A surprise?”
“Yeah.” I nod once, firm, like I’m giving an order because it’s easier than admitting I’m nervous. “Get in your car.”
A beat. Then his mouth curves into something that isn’t cocky, just amused. “Yes, ma’am.”
I jab him in the chest with a finger, and it’s like touching a live wire. “None of that ma’am shit. I have a name.”
He grins, lifting his hands in surrender. “Noted.”
The night air in Briar Glen tastes like pine, wet asphalt, and the last drag of someone’s cigarette. The parking lot is almost empty; the lights reflect in puddles from a late drizzle. We walk together, him just a touch behind me. I shiver, partly from the cold, partly from something else.
We reach the vehicles. His sedan is the color of an old penny and so dull it can’t even summon a proper reflection. The glass is still flecked with rain from the earlier drizzle; the beads catch the parking lot lights and fracture them into little constellations. It’s a nothing car, a car that’s meant to disappear, and I know he hates it.
He glances at the car with a look of pure, cold contempt.
“You hate that thing,” I say, low, not even intending to.
He snorts. “It gets me from point A to point B.”
“That’s a yes,” I say, and the corner of his mouth does this thing—like it wants to smile, but doesn’t quite dare. “Come on, follow me. I want to show you something.”
I turn away before I can see what the rest of his face is doing. I go to my truck, which is battered and half-rusted but honest about it. I get in, start the engine, and roll down the window. I wait until Evan’s car blinks to life behind me, headlights catching on every raindrop, and then I take off. We drive in silence, two columns of light splitting the darkness, winding through the slow, damp arteries of the town.
The drive is short — out past the last strip of town, up a wooded road that curves into darkness. An overlook waits at the top, unofficial, half-gravel and half-dirt, the place locals go when they need quiet or trouble.
I kill the engine and sit for a minute, hands on the wheel, watching my breath fog up the cab. My pulse is a hive beneath my skin. I’m cold, but I don’t move to turn the heater on. I just wait.
Evan’s sedan rolls in beside me, cutting its lights so abruptly the world seems to get ten degrees darker. He sits there, hands on the wheel, the dash lights painting his face in sickly green shadows. He doesn’t move. I get out, slam the door, and walk around to his side.
My boots crunch on the gravel. The sound is enormous in the silence. Town lights glitter far below through the trees. Somewhere out there, the river is a black ribbon. The wind smells like pine needles and wet earth.
He tracks me with his eyes, but doesn’t open the door. For a second, I wonder if maybe he’s changed his mind, or if this was some kind of game and I don’t know the rules. I knock on his window, a slow, deliberate tap. He rolls it down just a couple ofinches, and I can feel the warmth from inside the car, see the little swirl of his breath in the cold.
He looks up. “What’re we here for?” His voice is steady, but there’s a thread of something under it — hope or dread or maybe just plain confusion, the way I feel when I have to take a test and half the study guide is missing.
I lean in. My hair falls forward and brushes his cheek, static crackling between us. I smell coffee and cheap wine on his breath, something sharp and citrusy from his detergent. His skin is pale in the moonlight, almost fluorescent.
“This,” I say.
