Page 29 of Wicked Ruin

I had hoped I'd have it more together by now. That I'd be able to keep my distance from him and stay calm, collected, and utterly unbothered. But I didn't. I reunited with the only man I've ever wanted in my entire life by crashing, half naked, into him in the hallway—and in doing so, crashed headfirst back into his orbit. Because if anything, Declan's only gotten sexier.

Siiiigh…

All this time, and he still undoes me in thirty seconds flat. Okay, fine. Ten.

Devastatingly handsome in that gently catastrophic way. But even if he wasn't, there's the way he… looks at me. Shy, almost, as he shoved his hands in his pockets. I don't see the dangerous man the people of Ballyhock talk about. I see my friend. I see the man who stayed by my side when I didn’t know if I’d make it, who brought me soup, sent me bad jokes, and made life worth living.

A man who once gave me a kiss that ruined me for all other kisses until the end of time.

So tonight? Tonight I'm sexy as fuck because, why the fuck not?

I'm wearing a dark pair of slim-fitting jeans that show off my arse, paired with a tiny emerald tube top because I have excellent shoulders, if I do say so myself. Turns out, when you do arm presses at the gym, your shoulders get all defined, and things happen. Also, if he's paying attention, he may find that little butterfly tattoo on my right shoulder that I got on my last birthday.

I pair the tube top and jeans with nude-colored heels and dab on perfume I bought on a whim that’s supposedly laced with pheromones or something. It does smell delicious.

I make it to the club, and I’m doing a terrible job pretending to be casual, pretending I’m not staring at the door, waiting for Declan to arrive.

The door opens, and Ashland comes in. Everybody cheers. I give a half-hearted clap because I’m distracted and my heart is beating too fast. I try to remind myself—Ashland proposed to his fiancée, and we're here tonight to celebrate. Yay.

Then the door opens, and Declan walks in. The room doesn't change—the music doesn't stop, and nobody turns to look—but something in me goes very, very still. My breath catches, and I swallow my drink as Ashland walks across the room to him. They do one of those bro hugs that looks painful as they slap each other's backs.

Declan goes to his family, and I sip my drink. It's gone watery. I look around the room and see lots of friendly faces because everyone else has found their people. I could get up, find Bronwyn and Kyla, or even Erin. Could quietly make my escape, but no one would⁠—

“There y’are,” Declan says, joining me at the table, and my cheeks flush pink. The harder I try to fight it, the hotter they become. He’s here. With me. The second he could extract himself from his cousins, he came to me.

“Aye.” I shrug like my heart isn’t beating to the point of near bursting, like my cheeks don’t feel too hot and I’m not dying a million little deaths with him so close to me, yet so fucking far away.

“Hasn’t changed much,” he says, though his gaze grows a little wistful.

“You've gone soft,” I tell him. “You're getting nostalgic in your old age.”

He snorts. “I'm thirty-one.”

“Ancient,” I say solemnly.

He smiles but looks away. Why do I feel like he’s hiding something from me?

Declan physically doesn’t look like he’s aged a day, and yet… his shoulders round just the slightest bit forward, as if he’s carrying a heavy weight.

They all are. We all are.

What’s his?

I wonder if anyone's noticing the two of us talking and whether they’ll talk about it themselves. But even if they do, we're just two friends catching up from a distance. No one will notice. Why would they?

“Drink?” he asks.

“Please. Just water.”

He comes back with two waters and sits close—not touching, but close enough that I'm aware of every inch between us.

“You look well.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I'm not.” He glances at me sideways. “I kept tabs, you know.”

“Should I be flattered or alarmed?”