“With coffee?” she asked, all wide eyes and fake innocence. “Yeah.”
My gaze dropped briefly to her mouth.
Wrong move.
Because now I knew exactly how that mouth felt. Knew the shape of it under mine, the way she opened for me when she stopped fighting, the way she tasted like coffee and heat and stubbornness. Knew the sounds it made when she lost control.
I forced my eyes back to the road.
“You are incredibly distracting,” I said.
Her smile turned smug. “Good.”
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“The girl who pretends she doesn’t like making me lose my mind.”
Her smile faltered, not because she didn’t like the words, but because she did.
The air changed again. I kept my thumb moving over her hand, slow and deliberate, letting the silence do some of the work.
She looked out the windshield as the road curved toward her neighborhood, the scenery shifting from campus-adjacent streets to wider roads lined with old trees and houses set back on big lawns. The closer we got, the more her energy changed. Still happy. Still excited. But something tightened beneath it too.
“You okay?” I asked.
Her eyes cut to me. “You’re very nosy today.”
“You get quiet when you’re bracing for something.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
She huffed. “Maybe I’m internally prepping for round two with my family and you.”
“No, you’re preparing yourself.”
Her mouth pressed together.
Hit.
I didn’t push harder.
Not yet.
“Dempsey going to be there?” I asked, keeping my tone casual even though nothing about the question felt casual inside me.
Her fingers stiffened under mine, and there it was. The answer before the answer.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Lie? Maybe. Not completely. But not clean either. I nodded once, eyes on the road. “You don’t seem to like him much.”
Her laugh came too fast. “Luke’s fine.”
My hand tightened around hers before I could stop it.
