“Goodnight, Beautiful.”
I got out of the truck before I could change my mind.
At my door, I looked back once.
He was still there, waiting to make sure I got inside.
Normal.
Protective.
Infuriating.
Mine.
Inside the apartment, Cupcake yelled at me with the outrage of a cat who had been emotionally abandoned for several hours. I fed her, kicked off my shoes, and walked into my bedroom with cinnamon sugar still on my fingers and Dylan’s kiss still on my mouth.
The drawer waited beside the bed.
I stood there for a long moment.
Then I opened it.
The mother-of-pearl cuff lay wrapped in soft cloth where I had left it.
I picked it up, the silver cool against my palm.
Not a question this time.
Not a wound.
Not an almost-promise from a boy who had been too scared to stay.
A piece of us.
Old, yes.
But not dead.
I slid it onto my wrist.
It fit the same way it always had.
Only I didn’t.
I was not the girl from the fire anymore.
I was not the ghost in Georgia’s chair.
I was not Mandy’s sins or Regan’s regret or Dylan’s almost.
I was Destiny Rourke.
And tonight, for the first time, the story ahead of me did not feel like survival.
It felt like joy.
CHAPTER 14
