I drag a hand through my hair, trying to look casual. “I’ve just been busy at the station.”
“Uh-huh.” She smirks knowingly, leaning her hip against the counter.
I take a sip of coffee, but I don’t really taste it.
She nudges me with her elbow. “If you’re gonna stare that hard, you might as well go talk to her.”
I shake my head, forcing my gaze away from the window. “It’s complicated.”
Because it is.
From where I’m standing, I can see her gather her bag, laughing at something her friend says as they head for the door. She doesn’t even glance my way.
And maybe that’s the part that burns most… because if she’s not reaching out to us, not even acknowledging I’m here, then I must consider the thing I’ve been trying not to think about.
She rejected me the first time I asked her out. Then she went into heat, and we fucked.
A lot.
And maybe it was all just hormones.Just biology. Exactly what Simon had warned us about when he said not to make decisions in the middle of it.
I hate how much that thought scares me.
The door chimes when she and Norah step out, and I’m already moving before I realize it. Coffee in one hand, keys in my pocket. I follow like a man pulled on a leash.
Her scent is lighter now, muted by the cool morning air and whatever perfume she dabbed at her wrists, but I’d know it anywhere. It threads through the damp sidewalk air, teasing at the edges of my restraint, daring me to close the gap.
I push open the bakery door, the bell jangling behind me, and step into the brightness outside.
There she is.
Just a few yards ahead, hair catching in the breeze, her skirt swaying around her thighs. She and Norah are talking, their heads bent close, laughter bubbling between them like nothing in the world could weigh them down.
For a second, I imagine striding up, sliding an arm around her waist, murmuring something low in her ear that would wipe the calm right off her face and replace it with the heat I remember.
I stop dead on the sidewalk.
My chest is a mess of contradictions. Everything in me wants to chase her down, to prove that what we had wasn’t just a fever dream.
But then Simon’s voice cuts in, steady and maddening:Give her space, Beau. Let her come to us. Don’t corner her.
I curse under my breath and scrub a hand over my face.
The air is cool against my skin, and yet I’m overheating. Because I swear—I swear she glanced back. Just the faintest flick of her eyes in my direction before she opened the passenger door of Norah’s car.
She saw me. I know she did.
So why didn’t she come over?
Why didn’t she say anything?
My chest tightens, frustration clawing through me. Maybe Simon was right all along. Perhaps this thing—the heat, the nights tangled in her sheets, the kind of sex that left me wrecked and shaky—was just biology.
Maybe she’s already tucked it away in a mental box labeled “temporary.”
The thought guts me.
My phone rings, startling me back to myself. I fish it out of my back pocket, glance at the screen, and frown.
