“Dez?” he calls. She hears his violin play “The Imperial March” fromStar Wars, Darth Vader’s theme song.
She looks at him.What?
“You have a visitor,” Simon says, then opens the door to let Rafe in.
DEZ BOUNDS OFF THE COUCHand toward the open door to her suite. She never thought she’d say this, but Rafe’s the only person she wants to see right now.
“Rafe. What the hell is going on—”
She breaks off when she realizes he’s been … crying? His face is flushed, and he looks shattered, though it seems like he’s trying not to let it show. He holds the doorframe as if he needs it for support. When he meets her gaze, his eyes are damp, the cobalt of his irises so deeply pigmented Dez has to remind herself to breathe.
“Can we talk?” His voice is low. He looks past her, into the common area where Yael and Simon have taken front row seats facing them on the couch. “Alone?”
Dez takes hold of Rafe’s white shirtsleeve, feeling the heat of his forearm through the thin fabric. “Come on.” She leads him to her room.
“Got protection, Rafe?” Yael calls after them as Dez clicks her bedroom door closed.
Inside her room, Rafe stands facing the window, raking a handthrough his dark hair. Dez lingers by the bed, measuring the distance between them in the seconds it would take to close it. Three if she walks. One if she surrenders to the magnetic tug she feels now that they’re alone.
She makes herself linger by the bed, a safe distance away.
“He was my friend.”
Dez tips her head, confused. “Who was your friend?”
“Charles.”
“Charles?”
So he’s in on the story now, too? And he wants Dez to believe he and Charles were friends?
“I’m sorry,” she offers, but what does he want her to say? “Look, Yael told me what Moriah told the last-years. I get that there’s an official story, but let’s be honest, you and I werethere, Rafe. Weheardit—”
“I never thought it would end like this for him.” He turns to face her, catching her off guard with what looks like actual, open vulnerability. He’s serious. Is he serious?
“Don’t lie to me, Rafe.”
He closes his eyes. “As your mentor, I’m forbidden from lying to you. A tradition started by my own mentor. For better or worse, I can’t break it.”
Dez doesn’t know what to think about this. What if it really happened like they’re all saying it did? She was far away, and it was dark. And yeah, the sound was like something from a nightmare, but maybe that’s what it sounds like when someone leaps to their death. Who is Dez to say?
She’s so tired. So emotionally beat up. Her sense of reality has been undermined at every turn ever since Mo showed up at the Dairy Barn. She feels herself about to break.
And here’s this gorgeous guy openly breaking in front of her.
“What was Charles like?” she asks.
“He wanted,” Rafe says slowly, “more than anyone, to be a part of things.”
Rafe talks like lying’s never been invented. Like he’s truly grieving, raw, in a state of shock.
A second later, she’s standing at his side.
“Hey.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. Feels his heat again, warmer always than she expects him to be. “I’m sorry.”
He looks at her hand, really more on his chest than his shoulder. His muscles are taut under her fingers, the kind of body it could be a lot of fun to hold on to. He looks at her. Dez’s cheeks flush. Should she take her hand off? Has it been there a weird amount of time?
Then his hand comes over hers, his fingers closing gently around her fingers. A ripple passes through her, and she wants …
