“You used to like it when I called you baby,” he murmurs. “Remember? During storms, when you’d climb in my window and wrap around me like you’d never let go?”
The memory hits like a sucker punch to the ribs. Thunder outside, the trailer shaking, both of us pretending we weren’t scared. His arms around me were the one place I didn’t have to pretend or perform. I didn’t have to be tough. I just had to stay alive.
“You liked it then,” he whispers.
“That was then,” I whisper back. “We were kids.”
“But you remember.”
Goddammit. Of course, I remember.
And that’s a problem.
I step back, gently. Not because I’m afraid, but because I’m not. And that’s dangerous.
“I’m different now.”
But Z just looks at me, gaze steady in the moonlight. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”
I look out over the backyard again—perfect hedges, fairy lights, not a blade of grass out of place. Everything here is curated, so there’s no room for chaos.
But chaos is what I come from. And it’s knocking on the back door with a familiar smile and blood on its hands.
I take one last drag of the joint, then crush it against the bottom of my boot.
“Thanks for the update,” I say, voice flat. “You can go now.”
But Z doesn’t move.
And neither do I.
Z reaches forward and brushes hair from my face like I’m still that trembling girl sneaking into his room during thunderstorms. His fingers are rough, but the touch is gentle—so gentle it makes my chest ache.
“People don’t change, baby,” he murmurs. “It was always me and you.”
I step back like his hand burns. Because it kind of does. “Z, don’t ruin it.”
Because this isn’t just a moment. It’s a fork in the goddamn road. One path loops back to everything I used to be—anger and constant survival mode. The other leads to something… I don’t know… softer. Riskier. Like family dinners and locked eye contact.
His jaw ticks. “Ruin what?”
The words hang between us like smoke. Heavy with history.
“This,” I say quietly. “Us. We’re better as friends. That’s how it needs to be.”
His face shifts. Something darker flickers behind his eyes. “Why? ’Cause you found someone else?” He gestures at Helen’s curated garden like it personally offended him. “Captain America and his suburban dream house?”
The way he says it makes me want to laugh. Or scream. Because underneath the venom, there’s truth.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I bristle.
“Oh, come on. Even him being on apretenddate iskilling you.” Z’s voice is all quiet knives. “You think I can’t see it?”
I flinch. Because he can see it. Of course, he can.
I roll my eyes, scrambling for my sarcasm.
“Stepsister is the number one search term on Pornhub. He’s just a perv. He doesn’t know you like I do.”