I stop.
Turn.
He watches me carefully now.
“You backing out on your word?”
I sigh.
“Fine.”
The relief in his face is subtle but real.
And that does something to my chest I don’t examine too closely.
The burger place is right on the beach.
String lights. Salt air. Grease and music and the kind of casual that makes people fall in love by accident.
I wear cut-off denim that shows the muscle in my legs from years of training, wedge sandals that make them look longer, a soft tank that catches the breeze. Coconut oil on my shoulders. Hair blown out and falling down my back instead of pulled tight.
I look hot.
I know it.
Kane definitely knows it.
“You clean up dangerous,” he says when I sit.
“You say that to everyone.”
“No,” he says. “Just you.”
We talk easily.
Classes. Travel schedules. His mom. My siblings. The kind of conversation that feels… normal.
He makes me laugh.
Really laugh.
For a second, everything feels simple.
Then the door opens.
And my stomach drops before I even turn.
Tristan walks in with the guys like coincidence is a myth. Fitted tee tonight, sleeves hugging his arms, hair slightly messy like he ran his hands through it on the way. That one lock falls forward again.
His eyes find me immediately.
Then Kane.
Then the table.
I stare at Kane.
“What the fuck.”
