Cruz’s mouth quirks up at one corner. “Didn’t say you were.” His eyes flick to mine in the rearview mirror, then back to the road. “Just wondering how long that balance holds.”
My fingers tighten around my phone. The air conditioning vent suddenly feels too cold against my skin. I stare out the window at the passing buildings, counting the seconds between streetlights while my pulse ticks in my throat.
Cruz’s knuckles flex once against the steering wheel. The radio stays off. The only sound between us is the soft rush of tires on asphalt and the quiet click of his turn signal as we merge into the right lane.
Twenty minutes later, the car slows and veers right. My eyelids snap open as we pull into a drive-thru lane. Cruz rolls down his window, letting in the smell of coffee and pastries that makes my mouth water instantly.
My fingers twitch against my thighs as he leans toward the speaker. “Two large iced cold brews,” he says, then glances at me for half a second before adding, “with brown sugar cold foam on top.” Something in my chest tightens at those last seven words.
I blink at him. My lips part slightly, but before I can say anything, Cruz’s mouth quirks up at one corner, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead.
“Don’t read into it, Bells. It’s just coffee.” The words drawl out slow, deliberate, contradicting the precision of his memory.
The opening notes drift from the speakers—that guitar riff from “Talk Show Host” that Cruz used to play on repeat junior year, windows down, one arm slung over the seat behind me. My shoulders loosen before I realize it, body remembering sun-warmed vinyl seats and the salt-sticky feeling of skin after a day in the water.
The morning light cuts across his face as he pulls forward in line, and for the first time since we left the house, I get a good look at him. The butterfly closures on his cheekbone pull slightly when he moves. Beneath them, bruising has already started to bloom in deep shades of purple and blue, spreading under the skin like spilled ink.
“You sure it’s not broken?” I touch lightly beside the stitches, feeling heat radiating from the swollen skin. His jaw tightens under my touch. He drags his teeth across his bottom lip, the movement pulling at something low in my stomach, and finally turns to face me.
My hand lingers. The pad of my index finger grazes the corner of his mouth.
“You worried about me, Bells?” Each word vibrates against my fingertips, his voice dropping to gravel.
The temperature in the car rises three degrees. The air conditioning seems to falter.
“Of course.” I let my hand fall away, the skin of my fingertips still humming with the memory of contact. “We’re friends, Cruz.”
Cruz’s mouth curves into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Friends.” The word hangs between us, weighted.
“You didn’t come back last night.” My voice betrays me, lifting slightly at the end.
His eyes drop to my mouth, then lower, tracing a slow path down my neck before returning to my face. “Three felt like a crowd.”
A bubble of something between a laugh and a scoff rises in my throat, trapped behind my teeth. I tilt my chin down, peering up at him through my lashes. “Thought you said three was a party.”
My heartbeat hammers against my ribs. The cut on my lip throbs in time with my pulse.
Cruz shifts in his seat, angling his body toward mine. The leather creaks beneath him. “Do you want to party with me, Bells?” His voice drops half an octave, the question stretching between us like a live wire while my caffeine-starved brain short-circuits.
We pull up to the window, and the moment fractures. The barista’s voice cuts through the charged air between us. Cruz’s arm brushes mine as he reaches for the drinks, his knuckles scraping against my fingers when he passes over my cold brew.
The first sip hits my tongue—sweet cream cutting through bitter coffee—and I close my eyes, swallowing a sound of pleasure. There was once a time when I couldn’t afford the simple luxury of a fancy coffee, so I do my best to always appreciate it now.
When I open them again, Cruz’s gaze is fixed on the road, sunglasses on. Six years ago, we’d have filled this car with overlapping sentences, interrupting each other mid-thought. Now his silence has weight, and I’m afraid to test how much.
TEN
BELLAMY
Pacific Trade wedgesitself between a watch repair shop with yellowed blinds and a tile importer whose windows display the same three Mediterranean samples. The kind of block where businesses survive by not being memorable.
Gold leaf lettering peels slightly at the edges: Pacific Trade, and beneath it scrawledWe buy, sell, and trade your valuables. Behind tinted glass, three antique pocket watches rest on faded velvet next to a tarnished silver tea set and a mahogany box with a broken hinge. A strand of pearls drapes across a black display hand, just cheap enough that no one would bother smashing the reinforced glass for them.
Cruz drums his fingers against the steering wheel as we idle outside Pacific Trade. His eyes narrow at something—the camera dome nestled under the eave, or maybe the shadow that just passed behind the glass.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
His gaze shifts to me, dark eyes locking on mine for the first time since we parked. “Let me do the talking.”
