“You are.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being a coward,” she says and that lands like a punch.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.” She turns down the heat on the stove. “You’d rather freeze to death in that trailer than admit you need help. You’d rather suffer alone than let someone care about you. That’s not strength, Jace. That’s just being too scared to let anyone in.”
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” she says.
The quiet stretches between us, taut as a wire and ready to snap. The clock on the wall ticks too loud.
The smell of breakfast hits, and my stomach growls like I haven’t eaten in days. Which, to be honest, is probably true.
She glances away from me, plates up the eggs, and then the crispy bacon. She comes forward, hands me a plate, and slides into the seat next to me.
“I can’t stay here by myself, Jace,” she says finally, staring down at her plate. “You can see how quiet it is here without my—” She stops, swallowing hard enough that I can see her throat move.
“I get that,” I say.
She looks up at me through those glasses, and I can see the question forming behind her eyes.
“What is it, Bells?”
She hesitates, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, and filthy thoughts flood my mind. I try to force them out but my cock has zero interest in being appropriate right now.
Focus, you sick fuck.
She shifts slightly on the stool beside me, her scent drifting over. Something fresh and floral that shouldn’t make me think about wrapping my hands in those curls while she—
Damn it. There I go again.
I force my focus back to the plate. The untouched eggs and bacon.
“Could you stay?” She asks.
The air changes. Every molecule moves around those three words.
“In the spare room,” she quickly adds, rushing to clarify before my imagination runs wild. “Just until he’s home. Or until I can breathe in this house again without feeling like the walls are closing in.”
I blink at her. “You want me to stay here.”
“Yes.”
I glance toward the hallway at the family photos lining the walls in neat frames. Her dad smiling beside her at a sun-bleached beach, both squinting into the camera with matching grins. A younger Lola with braces and messy hair holding up a science fair trophy like it’s the Stanley Cup. Family dinners. Holidays. Moments captured and preserved as if they matter.
This is real. This is the kind of home that has warmth, memories, and people who genuinely care. And she’s asking me to be a part of it.
If Aubrey and Sam lost their shit about me being in the passenger seat of her car, they will absolutely fucking explode if they find out she wants me sleeping under the same roof, breathing the same air, and existing in her space when her dad isn’t here to supervise.
The scandal will be nuclear.
“Are you sure?” I give her a way out, an escape hatch, because she should take it.
“Yes.”
