That was the moment I lost the thread completely.
I stepped into her space, hands coming up to frameher face before my brain could interfere. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I said hoarsely. “Fighting it. Pretending.”
“Ledger—”
“I know,” I cut in. “I know it’s messy and complicated and probably a terrible idea.”
And then I kissed her.
It wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t planned.
But it was everything we’d been circling for weeks—months—colliding all at once.
Her hands fisted in my shirt. She kissed me back like she’d been waiting for it, like she’d been holding her breath the same way I had.
For one perfect, terrifying moment, nothing else existed.
She pulled back first, breathless, eyes wide.
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispered.
Reality came crashing in hard and fast, like cold water over a hot burn.
She stepped back another inch, then another, hands slipping from my shirt as if she’d just realized what she was holding onto. Her pulse fluttered visibly at her throat. Mine felt like it was trying to break free of my ribs.
“This—” She swallowed. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
The words landed like a punch.
I dragged a hand through my hair, breath still uneven. “Roxie?—”
“We can’t,” she said quickly, shaking her head as if she could shake the moment loose. “We’re supposed to be pretending. This was supposed to be clean. Simple.”
Clean. Simple.
Neither word applied anymore.
“I know,” I said, though the truth was I didn’t know how to go back. My body was still buzzing, still tuned to her, like it had finally recognized a frequency it didn’t want to lose. “I just … things have changed.”
She laughed weakly. “Yeah. I noticed.”
Silence settled between us again, but it wasn’t the same silence as before. This one crackled. Pressed in from all sides.
Roxie wrapped her arms around herself, like she’d suddenly remembered where her body ended and mine began. Her gaze darted everywhere except my face.
“We just—” She exhaled sharply. “We crossed a line.”
I nodded, even though every part of me resisted it. “Yeah.”
Another beat passed. Then another.
She took a step toward the counter, then stopped, fingers flexing at her sides. “This is exactly what we said wouldn’t happen.”
“I know.”
