“Does it matter?”
“Not if you’re just passing through.”
“Then I guess I’m whoever you want me to be tonight.”
It was a performance. All of it—the smile, the tilt of my chin, the careless swing of my hair. But somewhere under the act, something real pulsed. Heat. Freedom. The split-second illusion that maybe I wasn’t shattered at all, just a girl in a bar choosing to be alive.
I leaned closer over the counter to ask Evan something I hadn’t even decided yet. My fingers brushed his when he slid me another drink. Just a light touch, nothing meant by it, butstill—warm. Real. I felt it buzz across my skin like static after lightning.
Then the air changed.
Heavy. Electric.
I didn’t have to turn around to know why.
Calder filled the space beside me, big enough that everything near him seemed to shrink. No coat, sleeves shoved up, eyes dark as a storm. The noise of the bar blurred out until only his voice cut through it.
“Let’s go.”
The glass froze halfway to my mouth. “What?”
“Now.”
He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The slow bite of each word slid right under my skin. Heat spiked low in my gut, sharp and humiliating. I forced my shoulders back, searching for my voice, any words that could build a wall between us.
“Last I checked, you don’t get to?—”
Evan frowned. “Hey, man, she’s fine here, all right?”
Calder turned his head. Just that. A look. The kind that stripped paint. Evan’s jaw jumped once, then he stepped back, palms raised slightly like he’d just realized the bear in front of him wasn’t caged.
The whole bar seemed to stop breathing. My pulse hammered against the inside of my wrist. This was insane—him showing up, the fury, the command—but some reckless part of me responded before the rational part could drag me back.
“Donovan,” he said, quieter now, dangerous in its calm. “Outside.”
I hated that my body reacted first. Muscles shifting, legs moving. He didn’t touch me, not really, just reached for my wrist, fingers closing around air until I let him catch it. His hand was rough, steady, too familiar. The contact shot through me, hot and confusing as hell.
“Shaw—” I tried again, half protest, half dare.
“Don’t,” he cut in. One word, low enough that only I heard it. It wasn’t anger anymore. It was something worse—possession tangled with guilt, pouring straight into me.
The bartender still watched, unsure whether to speak, but Calder’s eyes killed the idea. I could’ve stayed, could’ve made a scene, proved a point. Instead, I let him pull me through the press of bodies and out into the cold, every stride matching his, every nerve lit up like we’d stepped onto thin ice and didn’t care if it cracked.
Cold air hit us in the face when Calder shoved the metal door open. It slammed the brick behind him and the music shrank to a dull heartbeat, muffled by the wall. The alley smelled like wet asphalt and cigarettes. My arm still prickled where his hand had been.
He paced in front of me, a caged animal in a jacket too thin for the temperature. Fists flexed. Shoulders rolling like he was trying to shake something off. I crossed my arms to keep my hands from shaking.
“You don’t get to pull me out of bars like you’re my dad or my boyfriend.”
He stopped mid-stride. The look he gave could’ve cracked concrete. “You’re being sloppy.”
I barked out a laugh that didn’t sound like me. “Fuck you.”
“That what you were trying to do in there?”
The hit came before I even thought about it. Instinct, faster than anger. My palm met his face with a sharp crack that bounced off the bricks. His head jerked sideways. For a second, neither of us moved. The chill slipped between us, cold enough to sting.
He drew in a breath through his teeth, slow, measured, like he was counting every reason not to explode. A faint red mark bloomed across his cheek. My hand burned.
