“What did you actually want from him?” I want to know. I don’t know why.
“I wanted a decent dinner.” She tilts her head back against the chair. “He asked me out. And I haven’t had anyone ask me out in a very long time.”
“How long?” My eyes linger on her profile, the weariness behind the drunk happiness, and my hand itches to reach out and cup her face.
“Since before my mother got sick.” She looks around. “That whole time, there was no room for any of it. Just work and hospital visits and bills and more work.” She rolls her head toward me. “When he asked, I thought, okay. Maybe now. Maybe I actually get to be a person again instead of a machine that only works and pays off debts.”
My claws unsheathe, and I have to force my wolf to relax.
“Did you want to sleep with him?” I ask. Why is that important? I shouldn’t care about that. I don’t want to sleep with her.
She wrinkles her nose. “Not really.”
“Not really.” My wolf relaxes.
“He was handsome. I might have considered it.” She says this with the breezy honesty of someone who has temporarily lost their filter. “But mostly I just wanted someone to flirt with me. To look at me like I was worth looking at.” She pauses. “For three years, the only thing I’ve been is useful. Someone who shows up and handles things and keeps going.” She looks at the sky, her smile fading. “I wanted one night of being something else.”
The weight in my chest doubles.
“Why not share some of the burden with someone?”
She laughs, a short, dry sound. “With who? You?”
When I don’t respond, she shakes her head pityingly at me. Then she gestures at the house behind us, the garden, the space of it all. “You live here, Grayson. This beautiful, majestic house. And I sold my mother’s lamp last week to buy groceries.” Her voice doesn’t break, which somehow makes it worse. “I knowwhat I’m worth to someone who has all of this. I’m baggage. I won’t ever be baggage.”
I reach over and pull her chair closer to mine. She lets me. I wrap an arm around her shoulders, and she tips into my side without the usual argument.
“Ethan doesn’t think you’re baggage,” I say, hating the way she talks about herself, hating this vulnerable side of her because it’s making me feel things I vowed never to feel again. “I don’t either.”
She reaches up and pinches my jaw between her fingers, squeezing lightly. “No. You think I’m your nanny.”
“I’d like it if you were Ethan’s.” I smile lightly.
She laughs, still holding my jaw. “That’s the same thing.”
I pull my face free. “I keep telling you. Let me pay off the debt. Nobody corners you in parking lots. Nobody grabs your wrist at dinner.” I hold her gaze. “You stop surviving and start living. You wouldn’t want for anything.”
She pats my cheek. Her hand is warm. “You’re right,” she says. “But my ego doesn’t want to take that from you.”
“Your ego is exhausting.”
“I know.” She sounds almost fond about it. “I’m aware.”
“You’re surprisingly honest when you’re drunk.” I rest my forehead against hers, overcome by affectionate exasperation.
She pulls back to look at me. “I’m not drunk.”
“Miranda.”
She leans back and looks up at the sky. “I used to be fun, you know. Before everything. Get a drink in me and I was the life of every party.”
“I have a hard time picturing that.”
“You’d be surprised.” She grins. It’s different from her usual smile, looser, and it does something damaging to my ability to think clearly. “I was entertaining company.”
“You’re entertaining company now. Just with more opinions.”
“I’ve always had opinions.” She tips her head back farther to look at the moon. “It’s just that no one used to argue back.”
