He’s quiet for a long moment, like even answering is too painful.
“Mom promised to talk to him,” he says. “But yeah, he can. He can do whatever he wants. It’s his empire. And at the end of the day, she’ll stand by him, no matter what.”
“But what about what you want?”
He scoffs. “You know my dad. Legacy. Family. Tradition. That’s what matters to him.” He stares down at his knuckles, white from how hard he’s holding the wheel. “What I want doesn’t even make the list.”
“That’s not fair,” I say. “You have to stand up to him. Fight for your future.”
His parents have always seemed reasonable to me. I know how much they love him. Maybe if he just tells them how much this means to him, they’ll meet him halfway. Work out some sort of compromise.
“You don’t get it. It’s not that simple.”
“You don’t have to do this alone.” I reach out. My hand finds his thigh, the muscles tense, coiled like a spring. “I can talk to Kora. I’ll make her understand. Your dad, too?—”
He flinches, pulling back like my touch has scorched him.
“I don’t want you to do that. It’s not your problem,” he says. “Just drop it.”
“But, Hay, I want to help?—”
“I saidno.” His voice slices through the air like a blade. “This is why I like your sister—at least she knows when to shut up.”
The words hit like a slap. I jerk back, breath caught, throat tight.
“Fine,” I whisper, reaching for the door handle. “If that’s how you really feel, I’ll go.”
His hand shoots across the console, locking around my wrist before I can open the door. His grip tightens, his eyes wide with regret.
“Al, wait—I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that,” he says. “Please don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t handle that right now. Not with everything else.”
“I’m not mad,” I say, even though something inside me is already bruising. “I just hate that youkeep shutting me out. Whatever’s happening, I want to be there for you. I just wish you’d let me.”
“Believe me,” he murmurs, his voice thick, “there’s a lot of things I wish were different, too.”
“Like what?”
His expression flickers, like he’s balancing on the edge of a confession. Like he wants to tell me everything.
Then he leans in, slow and deliberate, until the heat of him sinks into my skin. His comforting scent—that warm cedar smoke and something darker, spicier—folds around me, tugging at something low in my stomach.
My breath catches. Every muscle in my body goes taut, waiting, straining toward him before I can stop myself. His eyes flick to my mouth for the briefest heartbeat, and the air between us tightens, charged enough to make my pulse stumble.
For a suspended second, I think—hope—he might kiss me.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he veers higher, his lips brushing the side of my temple, feather-light. Gentle. Far too gentle to mean anything.
Then he reaches past me and opens the door.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice rough with restraint. “There are things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you. And I can’t change any of it, no matter how much I wish I could… and neither can you.”
Idecide to skip the Alpha Delta dayger at Hayes’s frat house the next day.
After last night, I’m not exactly sure where Hayes and I stand, and showing up to a frat party to find him tangled up with my sister doesn’t strike me as the smartest way to find out.
He’d said he wanted to talk about Argy after the game, but it’d felt like something else. Like he was fishing for information. Testing my reaction to his getting back together with Amber, maybe. And then he shut me out the second I pushed too hard about her and his family.
