God, I was pathetic.
“You’re zoning out,” Nessa said, leaning into me like a nosy little devil on my shoulder.
“I’m good,” I told her, a little too fast.
“You’re lying.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I pulled out my phone and reread his last few messages.
Brooks
Carolina and I watched Princess Diaries. You were right. She loved it.
A smile tugged at my lips when he followed up almost immediately with another text.
Brooks
I did, too.
That had been three weeks ago.
I stared at the screen for a long moment, thumbs hovering. This was a mistake. It was nearly midnight. He was a single dad; he was probably in bed by now.
And still, I hit send.
Me
Happy almost New Year.
There. It was too late now. I stared at the speech bubble, heart thudding wildly.
Me
Nessa and Pink dragged me out to the tavern to celebrate. Lucky me. Do you have Carolina tonight?
Nessa was watching me like a hawk now, which made it even worse. Thankfully, she didn’t press me on it.
Seconds turned into minutes. The music swelled around us until finally, we reached the final countdown to midnight. I tried to sink into the noise, into the safety of my friends and the chaos of a bar gearing up for a new year, but my brain was somewhere else entirely—looping back to Brooks’s well-worn, navy hoodie that always smelled likehimand the way he carried his daughter in one arm while holding a coffee in the other like some goddamn domestic fever dream.
Competent men were my kink.
And just when I had given up hope, my phone buzzed across the table.
I didn’t check it. Not right away. Not with Nessa still eyeing me sideways, like she could smell the emotional recklessness on me. Hell, she probably could.
“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” I said, sliding out of the booth.
“But it’s almost midnight,” Clarke sputtered. “Don’t you want—”
“Clarke, I love you, and I promise, first thing in the morning, you can continue your matchmaking efforts. But right now, all I really want is to pee in peace.”
I barely spared my friends a glance before darting through the crowd, my heart pounding harder than it should’ve been. I wasn’t even sure why I’d texted him. Maybe I was a glutton for punishment. Or maybe I just needed to touch the wound, make sure it still hurt.
I never made it to the bathroom. Instead, I ducked under somebody’s arm and found an empty spot at the end of the bar. Being short and petite definitely had its perks.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
