And I realize, this isn’t something I’m falling into anymore. This isn’t something happeningtome. I’m choosing it. Choosing him. Without saying it. Without making it a moment. Without turning it into something fragile that could break if we looked at it too closely. And somehow, that makes it stronger. Because there’s no pressure. No expectation.
Just presence.
And for the first time, when I look at him, I don’t see something broken. I don’t see something dangerous that I should run from. I see someone who let something slip. And didn’t try to take it back. And I stay. Right where I am. With him. And that’s enough.
For now.
More than enough. Because something just shifted between us. Control, into something else. Something deeper. Something that doesn’t need to be named yet. But it’s there.
Locked in.
Whether we say it or not.
“No.”
Olivia stops halfway across my room with one boot in her hand and the other already on her foot. She looks at me from beneath her curtain of hair, and I know before she opens her mouth that she’s not backing down.
The room is quiet around us, the kind of quiet that comes before a fight neither person wants but both can feel building. The clubhouse is louder beyond the door, men moving, women talking, kids finally starting to wind down after another day of too many people packed under one roof. With the threat hanging over us, most of them have stayed here instead of going back to their houses. Safer. Tighter. Easier to guard.
Olivia doesn’t see it that way. She sees walls. My room. My rules. The life she had before all this getting farther away every time I tell her no. I get that.
Doesn’t change my answer.
She straightens slowly, boot still hanging from her fingers. “I’m going.”
“No.”
Her jaw tightens. “You already said that.”
“And?”
“And it doesn’t magically become reasonable the second time.”
“It was reasonable the first.”
She exhales, sharp and frustrated, dropping the boot onto the edge of the bed. “I have plans with Tessa and my sister. Plans I made before all of this happened.”
“All of this did happen.”
“I know that.”
“Then act like it.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t do that.”
I lean back against the dresser, arms loose at my sides, watching her. Not crowding. Not moving into her space. I learned fast that if I step too close when she’s already bristling, she thinks I’m trying to force the outcome. I don’t need to force shit. The outcome is already set. “You were targeted,” I say. “They had your schedule. They had where you work. They had pictures, family names, routines. You think because you want drinks and music, they’ll stop?”
Her expression changes. Just a flicker. The words land because they’re true. She looks away, pressing her lips together like she’s holding back a reaction she doesn’t want me to see. “No.”
“Then no.”
Her gaze snaps back to mine. “That’s not how this works.”
“It is tonight.”
“I’m not canceling on my sister and friends because something might happen.”
“Fuck, it’s still happening.”
