I moved fast, grabbing the yellow blanket from the back of the couch and dragging it over both of us in about one second flat.
Cassie stepped inside with a takeout bag in one hand and her eyebrows already halfway up her forehead, taking in the scene with the slow, comprehensive gaze of a woman whose suspicions have just been confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt.
Skylar made a sound I will keep somewhere private until the day I die. A strangled little gasp, horrified and so fucking cute, before she shoved her face into my shoulder as if that would make either of us any less naked.
Cassie stopped in the doorway. She glanced at the blanket, then at my bare shoulder, before looking at Skylar, who was attempting to become part of my chest.
Cassie blinked once before looking at the takeout bag in her hand.
“Well,” she said, looking back at us. “I sent him over here to talk and apparently you two heard fuck on my couch.”
Skylar made a dying sound against my chest. “Cassie.”
“No, no. That’s on me.” Cassie lifted one hand, as if accepting responsibility before a jury. “I should have been more specific. Use your words, Skylar. Not your thighs. Rookie mistake on my part.”
“Cassie,” Skylar groaned.
“I’m going to my room,” Cassie said, stepping farther inside like a woman entering a crime scene. “I do not want details. I donot want eye contact. And I absolutely do not want to know why my yellow blanket is now involved.”
She stopped just before she reached the hallway and turned back. Her eyes found mine over the top of Skylar’s head.
“Zane,” she said.
“Yeah, Cass.”
The real Cassie looked at me for a long moment. The one beneath it all.
“If you hurt her again,” she said, with absolute seriousness, “I will make sure they never find enough of you to identify. Are we clear?”
I held her gaze. “Crystal.”
She held mine for another second, then turned and walked to her room.
Just before the bedroom door closed, she said, loud enough to carry down the hall, “And for the record, I am happy for you both. Disgusted, obviously. But happy.”
The door clicked shut.
She loves Skylar. Loudly. Fiercely. In that nosy, intrusive, nobody-asked-you-but-you-are-right kind of way that should annoy the shit out of me, but somehow doesn’t even come close.
I like her. That is probably a sign that I have suffered a head injury and should seek medical attention immediately. But it’s the truth.
Skylar spent the next five minutes hiding under the blanket while I kissed the side of her head and tried not to laugh, because I enjoy having all my organs where they are and Skylar has always had excellent aim when she is embarrassed.
The memory follows me down the street, warm as sunlight on concrete, which is not the kind of thought a man like me should be having at eight in the morning on a public sidewalk. Yet here we are.
I feel cracked open in the stupidest, most inconvenient way. Like something slipped in overnight, rearranged the furniture, and now I can’t find my way back to the version of myself that ran entirely on damage and low expectations. Like some light snuck in through a gap I forgot to guard and now I don’t know how to pretend I am still made only of dark places, bad decisions, and the particular brand of self-destruction I spent years perfecting.
It should scare me how good this feels. It does. A little. Somewhere in the back of my chest, where the old habits live and die hard.
The garage comes into view at the end of the block, its roller door half up.
For a moment, the sight settles me.
Then I see Griff standing out front, near the edge of the driveway, his phone pressed to his ear. Hiseyes are already on me as I come down the street.
The warmth in my chest goes cold. Just like that.
My hands curl into my jacket pockets. No. Not today. I keep walking.
