“Because you’d never come on your own.” She pushes her chair back, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I need the bathroom. Don’t vanish while I’m gone.”
“I wouldn't dream of it.”
She rolls her eyes, grinning as she disappears through the crowd.
Jace’s eyes find mine anyway, across the bar, over the heads of half-drunk college kids and a haze of neon light. And just like that, the air shifts. I feel it all over again, the pull, the ache, the part of me that never really stopped reaching for him.
I should look away.
Instead, I lift my glass, pretending I don’t feel my pulse in my throat.
He breaks from his friends and crosses the room. No hesitation. No pause. Just straight toward me like he’s been planning it since he walked in.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he says, voice rough.
“Didn’t expect tobehere.”
He smiles, faint and tired. “Still letting Emma drag you into bad decisions?”
I glance at the empty shot glass between my hands. “Apparently.”
He huffs a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “She always did know how to talk people into things.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “She’s good at that.”
The silence stretches, filled with all the things neither of us says. The noise from the bar fades, the music shifts, and suddenly it feels like we’re back in that endless loop of almosts and what-ifs.
“How’s Sierra?” I ask finally, because I have to.
His jaw works. “We’re… taking space.”
The words hit harder than I expected. “Oh.”
“She needed time. So did I.”
“And yet you’re here,” I murmur.
He shrugs. “Maybe I just came to see if forgetting her felt anything like trying to forget you.”
That one lands too cleanly.
I look down, tracing the rim of my glass, trying to breathe around the rush of heat that sentence brings. “You always did know how to ruin a night.”
“Only when it was already half-ruined.”
Our eyes meet again, and something in me cracks. I remember every touch, every word, every time I swore I wouldn’t let him close again. And still, here we are, standing too near, caught in the gravity of something neither of us ever stopped wanting.
He reaches out, fingers brushing mine where they rest on the bar. Just a touch. Barely there. But it’s enough.
I should have walked away.
But the second his fingers brushed mine, every reason I had for staying gone burned to ash.
The air inside The Bar feels too thick after he touches me, like every laugh and clink of glass presses closer. I mumble something about needing air and weave through the crowd before I can talk myself out of it. The door bangs shut behind me, and cool night air hits my skin, sharp enough to make me breathe again.
Footsteps follow a second later.
“Sarah.”
