The street is nearly empty, the lamps buzzing like faint warnings.
I feel more than hear…
Footsteps. Maybe twenty feet behind me.
Not rushed. Not careless. Measured. Deliberate.
Following.
My chest clamps. My blood screams through my veins.Why me? Of course, it’s me. Lucky me. This is how it ends. Headlines tomorrow: Local baker, gone missing.
Then, a raspy voice cracks the night.
“Did you catch the Mariners game tonight?”
My feet speed up. My pulse roars. My brain shouts,Mariners?
They didn’t even play today.
I stop dead. The epiphany lands like thunder.“The Mariners didn’t play tonight…”
Slowly, I turn.
“Nathan?”
And there he is, stepping from the shadows into the streetlight with those broad shoulders and a half-smirk.
The air whooshes out of me. Relief hits so hard I almost sag against the brick wall.
“You scared the hell out of me.”
He tilts his head, apologetic but cheeky. “Sorry.”
I narrow my eyes. “You know they didn’t play tonight.”
He grins, so clearlynotsorry. “I know.”
We walk in step, my heart still racing but for different reasons now. He explains quietly, “Ashton left me a voicemail. Said you might need someone to walk you home tonight.”
My brain buzzes with a mix of irritation and gratitude. “Thank you again for the horse carriage ride, it was…beautiful.”
He nods his head lightly as if it was nothing.
For a moment, silence stretches. Tonight, the world around us is too dark, too quiet, but with him beside me, it feels almost manageable. Almost.
“You ever think the world’s just… getting scarier than it used to be?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He glances at me, expression unreadable. “Yeah…I do.”
Something in his tone makes me shiver, but not from fear this time, but something else.
Finally, we reach our building. My heart is still climbing walls. I linger at the door. “Do you want to come in?”
He sighs softly, like the weight of something unsaid is pressing against his ribs. “I can’t tonight. I have some work to finish.”
Disappointment twists in my chest.What work? Why rush off? Was it connected to Taylor Pierce? Why was Nathan texting him?Questions chew at me. Questions I only feel like I have a right to ask because we had sex, not because he actually gave me this weird permission that we’re close. Which sucks.
This is why you don’t do one-night stands. They never come with rules.
