Our hands brushed over the buckle. Her fingers were warm, smaller than mine. The touch sent a current up my arm and into my lower region.
I looked up.
She was right there.
Eyes wide, lips parted, and I could count the copper flecks in the brown contact she wore over her blue eye. Her breath came out uneven, a soft exhale that I felt against my jaw, and my gaze dropped to her mouth without permission.
One inch. Maybe less.
The bond roared in my chest, howling, pressing against my ribs, demanding I close the gap. My hand tightened on the buckle. Her pulse jumped in her throat.
A tap on the window shattered the moment.
I straightened. A police officer stood outside, gesturing for us to move the car. We’d stopped in the middle of the lane.
“You can’t park here, sir.”
I cleared my throat. Mira turned her face toward the window, and even through her disguise I could see the flush climbing her neck. Unlike the usual, she was a loss for words or quips.
I pulled forward, found a proper space, and parked.
Neither of us mentioned the seatbelt.
***
The bookshop was a skeleton.
What remained of the walls stood blackened, gutted to the studs, the support beams exposed to the sky. The debris had been partially cleared by the construction crew, but the bones of the building still held the ghost of what it used to be.
Mira stopped at the threshold. Her hand came up and pressed against the scorched door frame, fingers tracing the edge.
“This was my dream, you know.” Her voice came out quiet.
“I picked this town and rented this space, did all the painting myself at dawn because I couldn’t sleep, hand-selecting every book on every shelf.” She stepped inside, her boots crunching on debris. “It was supposed to be a restart of my life.”
She kicked at a charred piece of wood and watched it crumble.
“Now I’m basically homeless. If it weren’t for you three, I’d be sleeping on the pavement.”
I watched her move through the wreckage, cataloguing the loss.
“We can have it rebuilt.”
The words came out before I’d cleared them in my head.
She turned. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’ll do anything for you.”
The sentence landed between us with weight. Her eyes searched my face, looking for the catch. She wouldn’t find one. I meant every word every time I say it out loud. Especially to her.
A beat passed. The space between us held still, charged with everything I wouldn’t say and everything she wasn’t ready to hear.
Then, bells jingled outside.
An ice cream truck, parked down the street, the tinny music drifting through the empty storefront.
Mira blinked and the moment broke. She took a breath, stepped back from whatever edge we’d been standing on, and the practiced casualness slid back into place.
