I went down the porch steps, crossed back to my bike, and looked up at the house one more time.
Dark outside.Quiet all around it.Big enough to swallow a person whole if they let it.
And inside, Ever.
The woman I had somehow stopped seeing as just Ever.
The woman who had apparently reached right into the center of my life and flipped the whole damn thing upside down without either of us understanding how.
I didn’t know what the hell had just happened, but I only knew one thing for sure.
My whole world had shifted and Ever had everything to do with it.
Chapter Eleven
Ever
What the hell was I doing?
I stared at the clubhouse through my windshield like it might answer me, but it didn’t.
Same building it had always been.Same place it had been the handful of times I’d ever stepped foot inside years ago, usually with Penny, sometimes with Bell, always feeling just a little out of place, like I’d wandered into a world that wasn’t mine.
And yet, here I was.
I was parked out front with the engine still running.My hands gripped the steering wheel like I might suddenly change my mind and peel out of there before anyone noticed me.
“You are an idiot,” I muttered to the glass.
There were at least two places in Weston that could fix a tire.Probably more if I actually looked.I didn’t need Jude and I didn’t need to be at the clubhouse.I didn’t need to walk into the lion’s den just because he told me to.
But hehadtold me to, and I had come because apparently, all it took was one man with a backwards cap and a low voice telling me to do something, and I just… did it.
“You are such an idiot,” I whispered again.
I exhaled slowly, staring at my own reflection faintly in the glass.
I had Jesse.
Or… whatever Jesse was.
He was coming back tonight and he liked me.
And instead of leaning into that, I was sitting outside the Fallen Lords clubhouse waiting for Jude like—
A hard knock on my window made me jump.I let out a small yelp before I could stop it and turned my head.
Penny stood there, grinning like she’d just caught me doing something I shouldn’t be doing.
Which… yeah.Accurate.
I fumbled for the window button and rolled it down.
“Hey!”she said brightly.
“Hi,” I replied, still trying to get my heart to settle back into a normal rhythm.
We just… looked at each other for a second.
