“What’s wrong?” she asked when Stephanie stayed quiet.
Stephanie met her eyes. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, bright in the low light. Her voice came out uneven. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I think I might be having a midlife crisis. But I don’t know. I don’t think so. I just… I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about myself.”
Casey’s stomach dropped. The thought arrived anyway: maybe this was about the way Stephanie had looked at her tonight, the way her body had leaned in at the bar. Casey shut it down hard.
Even if some small part of Stephanie felt the same pull, she was curious at best. Casey refused to be someone’s experiment again. She wanted someone who wasn’t afraid to be seen with her.
Stephanie kept talking, her voice fraying at the edges. “I don’t know. I know I’ve been drinking, but it’s not that. I’m not…” The words trailed off.
Casey leaned forward slightly, elbows on her knees. “Stephanie, what’s going on?” Concern sat heavier than any selfish spark. Whatever this was, it had Stephanie shaking.
Stephanie held her gaze. Then she looked away fast and pushed to her feet. “I should go.”
“Wait.” Casey reached without thinking, fingers closing around Stephanie’s wrist. The skin there felt warm, pulse jumping under her thumb. She stood at the same time. The motion brought them close, inches separating shoulder from shoulder, breath from breath. Her free hand came up on instinct and settled at Stephanie’s hip to steady them both.
The air between them thickened. Casey felt it press against her skin, the faint citrus scent of Stephanie’s lotion still clinging to her. Heat slid through Casey’s chest and lower, a rush she could not stop. Stephanie’s tank top brushed the backs of her fingers. The contact grounded nothing. Casey’s heart beat too loud in her own ears.
She knew she should let go, step back, say something light that would break the moment. Instead her fingers stayed where they were, the thin fabric warm under her palm. Stephanie’s wrist stayed caught in her other hand.
Neither of them moved.
Casey held still, every nerve alive under the weight of Stephanie’s words and the warm press of her body. She had spent the entire walk home battling the same pull, reminding herself that Stephanie was straight, newly single, and leaving in a few weeks. Every brush of contact tonight had tested that line.
Now the line felt blurred and dangerous, and Casey’s hand still rested on Stephanie’s hip as if it belonged there.
She caught the shift in Stephanie’s gaze, a flicker of heat that darkened her hazel eyes and landed straight in Casey’s chest. Desire. Real and unguarded.
Casey wanted to step back, to break the contact before it swallowed her whole, but she stayed frozen instead, fingers flexing once against the thin tank top. The fabric was soft. Stephanie’s skin was warmer beneath it.
Casey swallowed hard. She needed to be sure. One wrong move and she would be right back in the mess she had sworn off after Ash, after Melissa, after every half-hidden night that left her picking up the pieces alone.
“Hey, talk to me,” she said, voice low and rougher than she meant. “What’s going on?”
Stephanie’s eyes dropped away. “I don’t want to hurt you.” The words scraped out tight. “It’s the last thing I want.”
Casey’s throat tightened. The admission landed like a fresh blow to a bruise that had never quite healed. She had heard it before from women who hid what they wanted and disappeared when things got real. She kept her hand where it was, thumb tracing one slow circle along the curve of Stephanie’s hip before she caught herself and stilled the motion. She wanted to believe the words. She also knew better.
“How could you hurt me?” she asked, the question slipping free before she could swallow it.
Stephanie lifted her gaze again, meeting Casey’s fully this time.
“Because I can’t know for sure what I want, what this is…” She paused, then pushed on. “All I know right now is that when I tried to go to sleep, all I could think about was how I felt with you tonight. How much fun I had. How natural it all felt. And this strange rush I got when you told Ash that we were together.”
The words landed heavy. Casey’s breath caught. The rush Stephanie described echoed the one that had flared in her own chest at the bar, the protectiveness mixed with something hotter when her arm had settled around Stephanie’s waist. She felt it now, the echo tightening low in her stomach.
Her fingers moved again without permission, a gentle caress along the hip bone, skin and fabric warm under her touch. She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. Stephanie was tipsy and uncertain—everything Casey had sworn to avoid. Still the contact lingered, sending warmth straight through her palm and into her ribs.
Casey leaned in half an inch. Her heart beat too fast against her own ribs, the old rule screaming in her head. She said it anyway, the words slipping free before she could lock them down.
“You’re not going to hurt me.”
17
The words hung between them in the thick night air. Casey’s voice had gone low and rough when she said them, the sound sliding under Stephanie’s skin and settling somewhere behind her breastbone.You’re not going to hurt me.The quiet certainty in it made Stephanie’s throat tighten. Casey stood there believing it, her palm still pressed to Stephanie’s hip, thumb moving in that slow unconscious rhythm.
Stephanie swallowed. “I could.” The words came out thin. Her eyes stung. “And I don’t want to hurt you the way Melissa did.”
Casey’s expression changed, something quick and private moving behind her blue eyes, but her hand didn’t leave Stephanie’s hip. If anything her fingers pressed a little firmer, holding them both steady.
