He puts the car in park instantly.
He swings open the driver’s side door and loops around to the passenger side, pulling the door open for me.
“Please,” he says.
As I walk past him and slide into the car, my heart feels like it’s being tugged on a string.
A funny thing happens when you go through so much shit in such a short period of time. Sometimes, when the weight and pressure just feels like too much, other things become sharply clear.
And some things stand out.
Lying down alone in my room an hour ago, it was a joke to even think that I could fall asleep.
So I ended up here.
In front of the Daggers house, searching for the one person who can make me feel like I’m myself, these days.
I didn’t know when Sev would return. But when I saw his Mustang was gone from the Double Daggers parking lot, I just sat down and waited.
And with every passing minute, all I could think about was what he said to me.
I was falling for you, instead.
“I’ve never seenanyone more comfortable behind the wheel of a car,” I murmur to Sev as he takes us around the sleepy town, going nowhere, just like I needed.
“This car is my second home. Feels like my best home, sometimes.”
I’m silent for a while as we cruise down a hill.
There are words I need to say, too many of them, but I don’t have any clue how to make them come out.
I listen to the sound of the road.
Feel my heartbeat rising, every time I almost speak.
“Sev, I need to know the truth,” I finally manage to tell him a few minutes later.
It doesn’t end up sounding quite right. It comes out almost like a question, my voice breaking a little near the end.
He reaches over and puts a hand on my thigh. And even if all of this ends up asnothing, that touch is something I needed to feel.
He drives along the edge of a curve in the road and slowly brings the car to a stop, putting it in park. It’s not much of a view, but a few twinkling lights from the town lower come up from below the horizon.
“The truth is that Kieran did tell me to spy on you. Orgather infoon you, and what Onyx in general might have been doing. But I never told him anything about you or anyone else. When he saw us kiss, he thought I was ‘going undercover,’ but… he didn’t know anything.”
I swallow. “So he was suspicious about bribery.”
Sev nods. “He was. The only information I ever found was something Noah wrote in his planner about the alumni dinner, and I didn’t even end up mentioning that to him, either.”
My throat feels tight. “So it wasn’t all an act.”
His brow furrows.
“You think I could pretend to be obsessed with you, Wes?” he says, almost looking pained. “I didn’t want it. Idon’twant things like this. But every time I’m around you I feel like I have to protect you. Guard you. Make sure you know how much you’ve fucking changed my life?—”
He cuts off his sentence and turns to stare out the driver’s side window for a moment.
I watch the back of his head, his soft, dark hair that I want to be lost in every time we’re close.