The words slipped out before he could stop them. Next time. An assumption. A promise.
Junie’s breath caught. “Next time?”
They were standing too close. He could see the pulse fluttering in her throat. Could smell her perfume—floral, layered over the herbs she worked with daily.
He wanted to kiss her. The desire was strong, a pressure building that demanded release.
But this wasn’t the moment. Not yet. Not when everything between them was new, fragile, and full of potential he didn’t want to ruin by moving too fast.
“Goodnight, Junie.” He stepped back. The hardest thing he’d done in years. “Sleep well.”
Her expression flickered—disappointment, relief, emotions he couldn’t parse.
“Goodnight, Leo.” She opened her door. Paused on the threshold. “For what it’s worth? I like the version of you that eats at Lucinda’s. The one that laughs at overpriced wine and gets burger grease on his pants.” She looked back at him, eyes luminous in the dim light. “You should let that version out more often.”
She disappeared inside before he could respond.
Leo stood in the empty hallway, unable to make himself move. Then he walked to his own room, stripped off his ruined suit, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
He didn’t sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face in the neon glow of the diner. Heard her laugh. Felt the ghost of her hand in his.
I like the version of you that laughs.
For longer than he could remember, Leo had believed that version of himself was dead. But tonight, covered in burger grease and bad decisions, he’d felt more alive than he had in decades.
Maybe the chaos witch was right.
Maybe wildness wasn’t a flaw to be corrected.
Maybe it was worth choosing.
In the room next door, separated by nothing but a wall and years of careful self-protection, Junie Reed lay awake thinking the exact same thing.
Neither of them slept until dawn.
TWENTY
JUNIE
The text came at exactly 7:14 a.m., barely three hours after Junie had fallen into fitful sleep.
Emergency girls’ night. My suite. 7pm. Bring nothing—I have supplies. –A
Junie stared at the message, then flopped back against her pillows with a groan. Glimmer lifted her head from the spot she’d claimed on the adjoining pillow, scales shifting from sleepy purple to interrogative amber.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Junie’s voice came out scratchy. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
Glimmer’s tongue flickered.You didn’t have to, her expression seemed to say.You came home smelling like burger grease and lion and existential crisis. The gossip network has been buzzing since dawn.
Junie threw an arm over her eyes. The gossip network. Of course. By now, half the town probably knew they’d abandoned a fancy restaurant to eat cheeseburgers in a parking lot.
They probably didn’t know about the conversation, though. About the way Leo had talked about his father with that hollow look in his eyes. About the way she’d told him things she’d never told anyone—not even Avine, not entirely—abouther grandmother and her mother and the fear that lived in the spaces she kept hidden.
I want to find out.
His voice echoed in her memory. That rough admission in the neon-lit darkness of Lucinda’s parking lot. The way he’d looked at her when he said it, like she was a question he’d been avoiding and had decided to answer.
