TWENTY-FOUR
WES
The living roomwas quiet enough that I could hear the heater hum. I was stretched out on the couch with the same book I’d been reading for an hour, my eyes sliding over sentences that refused to stick. Every time the clock flipped to a new minute, my gaze snagged there like it had a hook in it.
She was at the Lantern with half of Star Harbor, laughing at bad jokes and dancing on two good legs. I had considered texting Hayes, but the last thing I wanted to do was salivate over Clara while her brother watched me like a hawk.
One lie was hard enough to cover.
Besides, I’d already sent one idiotic text about how the dazzling was going, then sat there acting like I wasn’t checking my phone every other page. So I kept pretending I was only awake because the couch was uncomfortable and the book was decent, not because the idea of her fumbling with the front lock alone in the dark made something low in my gut stay coiled and tight.
Headlights swept across the ceiling in a slow arc, painting the walls in pale blue. A car door slammed outside, muffled through the snow. My hand stilled on the page, my pulse kicking up as boots hit the front steps and the doorknob rattled.
The front door swung open on a rush of cold air and noise—the low thump of some distant bass still vibrating in her bones, the soft smack of her boots against the mat as she kicked snow off them.
“Shit,” Clara muttered under her breath, wobbling a little as she toed one boot free. The other followed with a damp squeak.
Kit’s headlights were already disappearing down the road through the front window, a streak of white fading into the dark.
My thumb sat in the crease of my book, holding the same page I’d been pretending to read for a solid fifteen minutes. The words blurred as she stepped into the living room.
Her cheeks were flushed, high and bright, from either dancing or the wind off the lake. Maybe both. Her hair had gone a little wild, the waves looser now, and a few strands escaped to brush her jaw. Her outfit looked just as good as when she’d left—those jeans that hugged her curves like they had a personal stake in it, the soft top that dipped at her collarbone, a faint shimmer at her mouth where she’d reapplied gloss at some point.
It should not have been legal for one person to look that good in my doorway.
“You’re still up?” she asked, one brow lifting as she leaned down to drop her keys into the bowl.
“I was finishing a chapter,” I lied, the book suddenly heavy in my hand.
She wrestled out of her coat, shoulders twisting, hair catching on the collar until she huffed and yanked it loose. Her smell hit me as she tossed her coat over the back of the armchair—bar air and winter, the faint salt of sweat under her perfume. My fingers tightened around the paperback.
Some asshole had put his hands on her.
It shouldn’t have bothered me. That was what people did at a bar—pressed close on sticky floors, slid palms down backs, leaned into each other when the band got loud. Some facelessguy had been where my hands had been earlier, and even just thinking about it made a low, unfamiliar growl curl in my chest.
I had no claim. No right. No anything.
“So how was it?” I asked, aiming for neutral and landing somewhere closer to anger.
Her mouth curved as she walked farther into the room. “Loud. Sticky. Full of bad decisions in progress,” she said. “So, you know. The usual good time.”
She stopped near the end of the couch, her fingers tangled in the hem of her shirt. A little crease formed between her brows. She swallowed hard and planted both hands on her hips.
“Okay,” she said after a heartbeat, exhale coming out in a rush. “So ... just hear me out before you tell me I’m insane.”
My shoulders went tight. “That’s ... never a reassuring opener.”
Her laugh was quick and nervous. She took one more step toward me, close enough now that I could see the smudge of mascara at the corner of her eye, the way her pulse fluttered in her throat.
“You know how you keep acting like your life is over?” she said. “Like you don’t dance, you don’t go out, you don’t flirt, you definitely don’t do anything fun that involves another human body?”
“That’s a sweeping generalization,” I muttered as I rose.
“It’s also true.” Her eyes slid to meet mine. “You haven’t lost your body, Wes. You lost your mojo. There’s a difference.”
Heat climbed the back of my neck. “Jesus, Clara.”
“I’m serious,” she pressed on. “You keep acting like this ...” Her hand gestured vaguely at my leg, my couch, my entire existence. “Means you have to retire from ... all of that. From touching. From letting anyone touch you. From sex. Which is bullshit, by the way.”