“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you made Dean’s List.”
My breath caught.
He looked away like he regretted saying it.
Too late.
“I know you feed a stray cat named Cupcake,” he continued, voice rough now, like the words had torn loose from somewhere he had tried to lock. “I know you drink matcha even though you used to say green drinks tasted like lawn clippings. I know you went home for Christmas and Cal pretended not to care that you liked the room with the blue quilt best. I know Sienna said hello, which according to Regan was a damn miracle.”
I stared at him.
The sidewalk disappeared again.
But this time, it wasn’t fear.
It was him.
“You knew all that?”
His mouth pressed into a line.
“Security updates,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
Nate suddenly found the sky fascinating.
Lily’s eyes had gone enormous. “Hot biker guy has been stalking you?”
“Dylan,” I whispered.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “You were starting over. I wasn’t going to interfere with that.”
“But you watched.”
“From a distance.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
“What’s up with the girl then? Georgia?”
“She isn’t you.”
There it was.
A year.
A whole year of me telling myself I had made up the way he looked at me. That I was pathetic for remembering. That the bracelet meant more to me than it ever had to him.
And he had known about Cupcake.
My stupid feral alley cat.
