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I’d thought it every minute since I’d stopped her.
But I hadn’t been able to.
I’d already been through Lily leaving. Watching Jessica walk away felt wrong in an indescribable, irrational way. It had since the night she’d come for her knife.
And with each day that feeling grew. Until tonight.
It’d felt like a weight was on my chest, crushing me as I watched her leave.
And now, it didn’t matter that I was staring right at it, I was so distracted by Jessica that I was barely able to focus on the bar. Dare could’ve come and gone and I wouldn’t have known.
Fuck. Lily could’ve, and I doubted I would’ve noticed.
“What would make you stop?” she suddenly asked from where she sat next to me, her crossed legs stretched over my lap.
I tilted my head in her direction but didn’t take my eyes off the bar.
“Your list. What would make you not want to complete it?”
“Nothing,” I said immediately then went back to rolling one of my mini blades along my knuckles.
She was silent for a while. When she spoke, her voice was so soft I had to lean closer to her to hear her in the loud bar. “What if you found someone else . . .”
I dragged my eyes to hers and repeated, “Nothing.”
She nodded and looked away, and after a few seconds, I went back to watching the bar while remaining exceedingly aware of the girl next to me.
Every breath she took.
Every slight move of her body.
The way she squeezed her legs together and bit back a smile whenever I dropped the knife to spin the point along her thigh.
My hand shot out and grabbed Jessica’s wrist when she dropped her legs from my lap and stood, my stare going to her patient expression. “Where are you going?”
“To get a drink. Do you want one?”
“I don’t drink.”
She rolled her eyes. “Water. I’m getting water. After what I’ve seen my entire life, you think I’d touch anything else? I don’t want to be like my mom. I’m crazy enough.”
“You’re not crazy.”
One of her eyebrows lifted as she smirked.
When I released her, she turned and wove through the crowded place toward the bar.
Wrong. Even this felt wrong. Like there was something stirring in my blood, trying to force me to move. To follow her.
I’d walked away from Lily for years despite her begging me to stay. Not once had I looked back. Not once had I felt as uncomfortable as watching Jessica walk to the goddamn bar.
It didn’t make sense.
Neither did the peace that swept through me when she was next to me.
My body tensed when she went directly for Dare’s sister instead of one of the other bartenders, but my worries quickly slipped from my mind when she lifted up on her toes to lean over the bar as the girls spoke.
She looked like she had in my bathroom earlier.
