I’m going to vomit.
"Meet me," Mila says. "Tomorrow. Just for coffee. We can talk through this like adults, figure out what we're both going to say if it ever comes up. I'm not your enemy, Devon. I never was."
I should say no. Every instinct screams at me to hang up, block her number, and pray to God that Jade never finds out about any of this.
But if Mila goes to Jade on her own—if she tells her version of that night?—
"Fine," I hear myself say. "Text me where."
"I knew you'd see reason." I can hear her smiling through the phone. "See you tomorrow, Dev."
The line goes dead, and I sit there for a long time, staring at nothing, my mind racing through fragments of memory I can't piece together. The hotel room. The whiskey. Mila's lips against mine, her hands in my hair, and then?—
And thenwhat? I thought I’d passed out! Surely, I’d remember…
I don't know anymore.I thought I knew. I wassosure.
But Mila's words echo in my head, burrowing deep, planting seeds of doubt I can't uproot.
You know what you did.
Except I don’t.
Chapter Sixteen
JADE
Devon’s late getting home from work, but nothing surprises me anymore.
I sit on the couch with my laptop open, pretending to work, but the cursor has been blinking on the same empty page for hours. I've rehearsed this confrontation so many times that the words seem robotic now.
I keep thinking about that night. I know you said it was a mistake, but it didn't feel like one. Not to me.
The message is scorched into my memory.
Mistake.
Devon told me nothing happened. He looked into my eyes—God; he wasinsideme—and swore nothing happened. But he told Mila, ‘it was a mistake.’
What was?
Mistakes don't come from thin air.
I hear his car pull into the driveway and my pulse ricochets.
Oh my God.
I close my laptop with trembling hands, my blood pounding in my ears.
Then the front door opens, and I almost lose my shit there and then.
Keep calm.
"Hey." Devon drops his gym bag by the door, running a hand through his hair. He looks drained, but there's something in his eyes that wasn't there this morning. Guilt, I think. Or fear. "Sorry I'm late. I got held up at the gym."
Probably another fucking lie.
"It's fine."
