The way he said it wasn’t casual. It was careful.
I forced a shrug. “Good hair day.”
He snorted. “Yeah, that must be it.”
His hand slid into his jacket pocket. The other fiddled with his keys, metal chiming softly. “I mean it,” he added, eyes on the dark street instead of my face. “It’s been a long time. Tonight you actually yelled at Cal for trying to seduce an innkeeper with his charisma score again. That felt like the old you.”
A huff of a laugh slipped out. “He deserved it,” I said. “Guy keeps thinking he’s the main character just because he’s young and cocky.”
Something eased in his shoulders, but I knew that look. The one that meant he was lining up a question and trying to figure out how to ask it without stepping on a land mine.
Hayes huffed a laugh, then sobered. He turned his head, studying me for a long beat, the way he used to when we were kids and he was trying to see if I was really okay after some dumb stunt.
“I really am glad she’s staying with you,” he said.
Something in my throat locked.
He rolled the keys between his fingers. “I’m not going to do the whole ‘hurt my sister and I bury you under the barn’ speech,” he went on. “You know who she is. Just know that Clara feels everything big.” His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping once. “So if things ever get ... complicated ... just don’t forget she’s Clara. Be kind.”
The words rang like a struck bell between us.
My brain threw up every image it had stored in the last twenty-four hours—her naked in front of me, the tremor in her thighs as she came on my face, the way she had looked at me afterward like I was something more than a broken man getting some practice in.
There was no version of this where I could look him in the eye and promise nothing would ever happen. Not only had that ship sailed, but it had set fire to the dock behind it.
“I’d never hurt her on purpose,” I said.
It was the only honest thing I could offer. My voice came out quiet and sincere. “Not in a way I can help.”
Hayes’s shoulders dropped. He nodded once, like that was the answer he’d been sifting for.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I trust you.”
He stepped off the porch toward his truck, then immediately caught the corner of his hoodie on Brody’s side mirror. The fabric snagged with a sharp rip.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered, yanking it free to reveal a fresh tear along the hem.
I shook my head, half exasperated, half fond, watching him stalk around the hood like the mirror had personally insulted him. Hayes Darling—cursed by ghosts, gravity, and the entire concept of inanimate objects.
My chest felt heavier as I walked to my own truck. Hayes’s words rode shotgun all the way home, a low, steady weight I couldn’t shake.
The house was dark when I stepped inside. My keys hit the bowl by the door with a clatter that echoed. My leg ached in that dull, familiar way from too much sitting and not enough stretching, so I rolled my shoulders, flexed my knee, and headed for the kitchen.
Cold light spilled over the floor when I opened the fridge. I reached for a bottle of water, hand landing on the shelf, then froze.
The list on the door had grown again.
Clara’s handwriting wove through mine in different colors of marker, looping and crowded, like we’d both kept reaching for rules because it felt easier than admitting how many we’d already broken. I let my gaze drag down the page.
Rule #1: No pity parties.
Rule #2: No sponge baths.
Rule #3: No random guys in the house (per the landlord).
Rule #4: Landlord must attend his own PT.
Rule #5: Tenant reserves the right to eat ice cream for dinner without judgment.
