It was strange, standing there in my own house but seeing her in it. Dani’s cardigan was on the chair. Her book is on the end table. A half-empty mug of tea next to Harper’s pink cup.
This didn’t just look like someone filling in for me while I was gone.
It looked like life.
The kind of life I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
I carried Harper’s drawings to the counter and smiled at one that was clearly meant to be Dani. Her hair was drawn in wild yellow swirls, her smile too big, her stick-figure hand holding Harper’s. Above it, in crooked letters, Harper had written: DANI IS MY HERO.
I had to sit down for a second.
Eventually, I heard the drain of the tub.
I grabbed a clean T-shirt from my dresser. An old white one I’d gotten from a game, with the Angels logo on it, soft from years of wear. I made my way back down the hall, trying not to disrupt the tranquility of the house.
The bathroom door cracked open, causing steam to spill into the hallway. Dani stood there wrapped in a towel, damp hair sticking to her cheeks, skin flushed from the heat. She looked better, but the pain was still evident.
I held up the shirt. “Figured you might want something comfortable.”
Her mouth quirked. “Borrowing your clothes now, huh?”
She took the shirt and disappeared back into the bathroom to change before I could respond, leaving me waiting in the hallway, leaning against the door frame, thinking about the fact that this woman was only occupying my thoughts, but now apparently my clothes.
A moment later, she stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in steam and my T-shirt, hair damp and clinging to her cheeks, skin flushed from the heat.
And I had to stop myself from swearing out loud.
The shirt hung off her in a way that shouldn’t have been allowed, soft cotton against bare thighs, the collar slipping just enough to expose the line of her shoulder. She looked small in it, vulnerable in a way I didn’t like. Yet despite that, my shirt on her felt impossibly right. Like she belonged in my space, in my clothes, in my arms.
And all at once, desire punched through me, sharp as hunger, a surge I wanted to lean into and push away in the same breath. I fought the urge to let my gaze linger, to close the distance between us with a touch.
Which was the problem, for many different reasons.
And wanting her like this, wanting anything, felt wrong when she was still fighting pain.
“Better?” I asked.
“Much,” she said, managing a small smile.
I held up the bottle.
Her eyes dropped to it.
Then widened.
“You—”
“Take them.”
She blinked. “Logan.”
I stepped forward, pressed the bottle and water into her hands before she could keep processing.
“You went to Cami’s?”
I shrugged like it was nothing.“You were hurting.”
“I would’ve been fine.”
