He looked panicked.
Drew Travers—six-foot-lot, built like a structural support beam, smug enough to irritate weather patterns—looked panicked.
I slowed.
He said something to her. Low. Sharp. His body turned, not toward her exactly, but between her and the crowd, like he was trying to block something.
Or someone.
Me.
Because when his gaze flicked past her shoulder and found mine, everything in him went tighter.
For half a second, relief flashed across his face.
Then fear.
He lifted his hand subtly at his side.
Not a wave.
A warning.
Stay back.
I stopped dead.
Confusion hit first.
Then humiliation.
Then something hotter.
Because from where I stood, it looked bad. Really bad. Drew and the blonde were too close, their faces tight, his jaw flexing, her hand still on him even though he clearly wanted it gone. Their body language screamed history. Not friendly history. Ugly history. The kind with old passwords and late-night fights and one person who still knew where the bodies were buried.
The girl tossed her hair and laughed, but the sound didn’t reach her face.
Drew said something else.
She went still.
Then she shoved his chest—not hard enough to move him, but hard enough to make the gesture public—and snapped something I couldn’t hear over the crowd. Her eyes cut around him like she was trying to see what he’d been looking at.
My pulse jumped.
Drew shifted again, blocking her line of sight with his body.
Okay.
That was not nothing.
The blonde’s expression sharpened.
For one terrifying second, I thought she was going to step around him.
Then Jace appeared at Drew’s side, clapped him on the shoulder a little too hard, and said something with a giant fake smile. Dante drifted in from the other direction. Not obvious. Not aggressive. But suddenly Drew was no longer alone with her.
The blonde saw it too.
