There’s something different there now.
Something that settles instead of fights.
“Just tonight,” she says.
It isn’t a yes or a no but something in between that still feels like a step.
I nod once.
“Just tonight.”
But we both know it’s more than that.
We both feel it.
And as she walks past me into the house, following the sound of Hadley’s voice echoing down the hall…
I realize something I didn’t expect to hit this hard.
She didn’t walk away.
And for Riley…that might mean more than anything she could’ve said.
Chapter sixteen
Too Close Now
Riley
Itell myself this is temporary, the whole drive over, like repeating it enough times will keep it from turning into something bigger than what it is, just tonight, just until things settle.
Just until I figure out my next move.
Except nothing about this feels temporary the second I pull up and see the brick-front house with a wraparound porch. A porch swing moving just enough in the night air, flower beds Quinn and Summer planted lining the steps, and a soft glow from the stone fireplace spilling through the windows.
It looks so warm and inviting against the dark like it’s already waiting for us.
Hadley leans forward in her seat before I even shut the engine off, her eyes lighting up again the way they did earlier. “We’re staying here?”
“Just for a little while,” I say, keeping my tone even, careful not to let anything else slip into it.
She doesn’t question it.
She never does when I say things like that, when I give her a version of the truth that feels simple and safe.
“Okay,” she says, already reaching for the door handle.
I step out first this time, scanning the property before I let her run ahead, the habit automatic now, wired into me in a way I didn’t have to think about before all of this.
Lights are on inside, Jace is on the porch like he was waiting for us. The truck is parked where it should be, and there’s no movement where there shouldn’t be any.
It should settle something in me.
It doesn’t.
Because I know now how easy it is for things to be wrong without looking wrong at all.
“Stay close,” I say, even though she’s already moving toward the steps.
