“No, he’s not. He’s not my dad.”
The worddadcomes out like a slip, low and ragged, and the second it’s in the air, silence floods the car.
I blink, thrown. “What the hell does that mean?”
His jaw goes hard. “Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that,” I snap, turning toward him even though I should be watching the road.
“You can’t just say something like that and shut down.”
Leander shakes his head quickly, staring out the window again. “Drop it.”
“Leander.” His name scrapes out of my throat.
“I said drop it, Phoenix.” His voice is flat, final.
The tightness in his shoulders and the way his hand curls into a fist in his lap tells me everything and nothing all at once. There’s history there. Something ugly. Something that makes him spit out a word like that, like it burns his tongue.
I want to push. Christ, I want to grab his chin, make him look at me, force the truth out. But he’s already retreating, already shutting me out, and if I push too hard, he’ll vanish. And the thought of him pulling away from me is worse than not knowing.
So I swallow it for now.
The car goes quiet except for the hum of the engine. My jaw aches from how hard I’m clenching it. I can’t take him home like this—brittle, walled off, hiding pieces of himself from me. I need to break through. I need to make him talk.
At the next intersection, I don’t turn toward his place. Instead, I veer left, down a darker road lined with trees. Leander glances at me, confusion flickering across his face.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Somewhere quiet,” I say.
A few minutes later, I pull into a cracked, empty parking lot on the edge of the woods. Streetlights buzz faintly, casting sickly halos against the dark. There’s no one else around—no cars, no houses, just silence and the sharp scent of pine drifting through the cracked window.
I kill the engine. The silence is heavier now, pressing in from every direction.
Leander finally looks at me, wary. “Why are we here?”
I turn in my seat, pinning him with a look. My voice comes out low, rough, shaking with the restraint I’m barely holding onto.
“Because you’re hiding something, rookie. And I can’t fucking stand it.”
“I’m not hiding anything, Phoenix.”
I get out of the car, stalking to the passenger side and flinging open his door. “Get out.”
Leander gapes at me. “Seriously?”
“Now, Lee.”
He gets up out of the car, a piercing glare aimed at me. I open the back seat door and shove him back inside.
“Hey—!”
His mouth tastes like whiskey and coffee, a mix of last night’s recklessness and this morning’s quiet. I can’t get enough.
I shut the door behind us before pushing him on his back. The second his lips part for me, I deepen the kiss, sliding my tongue against his until he gasps into me.
That sound—fuck, that sound—it’s better than any answer he could’ve given me.
