Page 70 of Bend

That lands between us too.

Because that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

I know I don’t have to, but I fucking want to.

“Okay,” she says.

And Christ, that one word feels like trust.

I nod once, not trusting myself with much more than that, then finally ease back just enough to look at her properly without letting her go completely.

“Alright lets get out of her,” I say, softer now. This time, when she smiles, there’s no hesitation in it, and that’s what stays with me as I turn with her back toward the garage.

Not the argument, or the anger.

Just the fact that when I pulled her in, she held on.

And worse—

I didn’t want to fucking let her go.

Chapter Ten

Thorne

I Dont need ur love - Rumelis, Minzie, Hotel Red

It’s been a week, and somehow that’s enough time for Echo to become everybody’s favourite fucking complication.

Which is annoying for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that I’d quite like to still be properly angry with her.

Would be easier if she was useless and Sayshen was forced to swallow his smug little told you so face.

But no.

Turns out she’s good. Like, properly good.

Good enough that Andre’s already trusting her with work he doesn’t hand out to just anyone and the lads stopped eyeing her like a suspicious package by day three. When she leans over an engine, grease on her fingers and that mouthy little look on her face, everyone shuts the fuck up and listens.

Even me.

Hate that.

Mostly because it’d be a lot easier to stay pissed if she weren’t so fucking competent.

Instead, she’s clever, funny, still hot as hell, and somehow fits in around here way too easily for someone who dropped into our lives like a grenade with lip gloss on.

That should’ve sorted me out.

Should’ve looked at the whole circus from that morning, remembered she kept who she was to herself while dragging the most secret, buried part of me out into the open, and decided absolutely the fuck not.

Because that’s the bit that still sticks.

Not just that she lied, but that she let me give her something real while she was still holding shit back. That she made it easy for me to let my guard down, to stop being scared for one night and to show her and Wolfe a side of me I’ve spent years keeping locked up tight, all while she was standing there hiding secrets of her own.

Brilliant.

Love that for me.