“What was that?” I whisper.
My fingers curl into my lap, trying not to fidget.Why do I feel like I’m missing something?
“Let’s go,” Wesley calls sharply from the front door, keys spinning around his finger.
I thank Heath for dinner and nudge Emmett. “Are you still coming?”
“Yeah,” he mutters as his fork clatters onto his plate. “I’ll meet you out there.”
I hesitate, stuck between wanting to press and being afraid to, but Wesley whistles from outside, the sharp sound slicing straight through me.
I force a tight smile for Heath, grab my jacket, and step out into the cool summer evening.
The leather in the back seat is chilly beneath my thighs. Wesley’s in the driver’s seat, one hand draped over the open window frame, the other drumming against the wheel in short, irritable taps.
He doesn’t look at me, and a tiny, stupid ache blooms in my chest.
I know better than to read into things—especially with him—but I can’t stop.
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Lane. I definitely shouldn’t have lied.
And underneath all of it, there’s this awful voice in the back of my mind whispering the thing I don’t want to admit: maybe the problem isn’t Lane.
Maybe it’s me.
Emmett finally emerges from the house, clearly in no rush as he slowly climbs into the passenger seat, slamming the door too hard to be an accident.
No one speaks.
The silence is brutal and heavy. Suffocating. My pulse pounds in my ears, louder than the hum of the tires on the packed dirt.Not even the low, familiar murmur of Luke Combs touches the tension stretching between the three of us.
Wesley stares straight ahead, shoulders tense beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, jaw carved from stone. Emmett ignores us both, glaring out the passenger window.
I shift, unable to sit still, hyperaware of every inch of my skin. The memory of his mouth on me is inescapable—his hands gripping my thighs, the scrape of his stubble, the way he held me through it. Heat curls low in my stomach just thinking about it, a traitorous pulse throbbing at the memory.
Then his eyes lift to mine in the rearview.
It’s one second. Maybe less.
But it feels the same as if he’d reached back and touched me.
His jaw flexes. His grip tightens on the wheel. Something hot and sharp flickers in his eyes before he smothers it—too late. I saw it.Felt it.
My breath is caught in my throat and my skin tingles everywhere.
He remembers, too.
The moment fractures as headlights sweep across the bunkhouse porch. Wesley throws the truck into park and resumes tapping his fingers against the wheel, eyes straight ahead.
Neither of them moves. The silence thickens again, settling across the cab.
The weight of it presses on my chest until I can’t bear it anymore. I lean forward between the seats. “Okay. What is going on?”
Nothing.
Wesley doesn’t flinch, his expression unreadable. I turn to Emmett, my voice soft. “Did I do something?”
He turns his head to look at me, and his shoulders rise with a breath.
