Well, I guess it really did.
I glanced toward the wall of glass beyond the kitchen, where rain blurred the ocean into a moving sheet of gray.
“Is it safe to drive?” I asked.
Ben made a face. “Technically? Maybe. Sensibly? No.”
“Tide roads are flooding,” Tobias added. “The lower coastal route is already partially closed.”
Ben set his phone down. “I can get us through if I have to, but I’d rather not play hero in that.”
“No,” Tobias said.
I shifted my weight, fingers tightening around the strap of my bag. “I can call a rideshare or something if that’s easier.”
Both of them looked at me like my suggestion was absurd.
“No,” Tobias said again.
“Absolutely not,” Ben said, shaking his head. “If I’m not driving you out in this, some random bloke named Darren in a Corolla definitely isn’t.”
“Oh, I guess not…”
“Tobias has plenty of rooms,” Ben continued. “You can stay here tonight.”
My brain caught on that sentence and just… stayed there.
Stay here.
Tonight.
In Tobias’s house.
“Um, no, I don’t want to impose,” I said, because apparently my survival instinct was to reject the most practical solution before anyone could accuse me of wanting too much.
“You are not imposing,” Tobias answered.
“It’s really not a problem,” Ben added. “I’ll be staying too.”
I looked between them, then back toward the glass, where lightning flickered somewhere far out over the water and lit the whole kitchen in a brief, cold flash.
Thunder followed several seconds later, deep and grinding.
“Okay,” I said, quieter than I meant to. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” Tobias replied.
Ben smiled. “Great. Sleepover sorted.”
I didn’t know what to do with the wordsleepoverin Tobias Kelly’s kitchen, so I pretended I hadn’t heard it.
Dinner happened after that.
Tobias cooked, moving through the kitchen with that same intense precision he brought to everything else, measuring and cutting and stirring like each action had been considered before he performed it. Ben sat at the island and chatted like this was normal, like Tobias making dinner for us was just something that happened sometimes.
The food was good too, which was starting to feel unfair. Tobias already had wealth, intelligence, cheekbones, a private aquarium, and an unsettling ability to remember every preference I had ever accidentally confessed. He did not also need to be good at cooking.
But he was.
