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The coffee smells of hazelnuts.

I stare at him. “You remembered my favorite.”

Ashby shrugs once. “I remember most things about you.”

Heat climbs straight into my face before I can stop it.

My pulse suddenly becomes very aware of itself.

Ashby seems aware of it too. His expression softens almost imperceptibly.

“Don’t do that,” I murmur.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like you know things.”

A faint smile touches his mouth. “I do know things.”

“That could be interpreted as a threat.”

“I meant coffee orders and stress patterns.”

“Still threatening.”

His laugh is brief, more warmth than sound.

I look down at my cup before eye contact destroys what remains of my nervous system.

The problem with all of this, the road trip, the forced proximity, the emotional honesty ambushes, is that I’m running out of places to hide from how much these men affect me.

Briggs returns carrying enough baked goods to survive a minor societal infrastructure collapse.

Torin follows with napkins and the expression of a man already anticipating disaster.

“You bought four muffins,” I tell Briggs.

“You seem emotionally fragile.”

“That’s not a medical diagnosis.”

“It absolutely is in a bakery. Blueberry muffins are basically emergency medical intervention.”

Torin slides into the booth beside me, shoulder brushing mine as he settles. Tiny contact, but still enough to send heat skating disturbingly down my spine.

The tiny accidental touches are starting to affect me more than I think they should, which would already be inconvenient if the chemistry between all four of us wasn’t getting harder to ignore by the hour.

Especially because none of them seem interested in pretending the tension disappeared after that conversation back at the house.

If anything, it’s worse now.

Briggs tears apart a blueberry muffin one handed before pointing toward my untouched drink. “You spiraling again?”

“No.”

“You alphabetized the sugar sachets yet?”

“No, but I find this city overstimulating,” I mutter defensively, not admitting that I was, in fact, about to organize the sugar sachets.