"Your face said it."
"My face is innocent." She sips her cider. "He's staring at you, though. Like, not subtly."
"I'm aware."
"And you're pretending you're not affected, yet you're gripping that mug hard enough to make it shatter at any moment."
I look down. My knuckles are white. I loosen my grip.
"I'm notaffected."
"Babe." She says it so gently without judgment.
I don't look at him. Not once. But I feel his gaze the entire night, hot as the fire and twice as dangerous, and when I finally leave and walk to the parking lot, my chest aches in a way that it shouldn’t over this man.
It's after six on Tuesday. The guests have cleared out for dinner, the crew's wrapping up, and I'm in the registration cabin finishing the week's booking confirmations when the door opens and Dean walks in.
He stops when he sees me. Like he didn't expect me to still be here.
"Sorry. I was just dropping off the activity logs." He sets a folder on the counter. "I'll?—"
"Why?"
The word comes out before I decide to say it. It’s sharp and final.
He huffs out a breath.
"Why did you lie to me?" I push back from the desk, and my voice is steady, but my heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth. "Why the fake name? Why tell me you were passing through? Why—" My voice cracks, just barely, and I clench my jaw against it.
He doesn't say anything. His face does that lockdown thing—jaw tight, shoulders squared, eyes giving nothing away.
"You owe me that much, Dean. At minimum. You owe me an explanation."
"I know I do." His voice is rough.
"Then give me one."
The silence stretches. I can hear the clock on the wall, the hum of my computer. Outside, somewhere distant, Rourke's laugh carries across the yard.
"I can't."
"You can't." I repeat, flatly.
"It's not—" He drags a hand down his face. "It's not that I don’t want to.I can't. It doesn't just affect me and you. There are people who'd get hurt if it got out, and that’s a risk I can’t take."
I stare at him. "What does that even mean?"
"It means—" His hands are fists at his sides, and he's looking at me as if he's being torn apart from the inside. "It means, I had reasons. I know that sounds like bullshit. I know you have no reason to believe me. But the lies weren't about using you. They were never about that."
"Then what were they about?"
He shakes his head. And something inside me snaps clean in half.
"You know what? Forget it." I grab my bag off the chair. "You had two weeks to come up with something, and the best you've got is 'I can't'? That's not a reason, Dean. That's a wall. And I'm done running into it."
"Kaylee—"
"No." I'm shaking now. The anger is so hot it feels like a fever. "You don't get to say my name like you care. You gave me a fake name and screwed me in your truck and didn't call, and now you want me to believe you had noble reasons? You want me to feel sorry for you because it'scomplicated?"