“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Your brooding is very expressive tonight.” He straightens, smug as hell. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
The elevator doors open. Sophia steps out first, barefoot, heels dangling from her fingers, my jacket swallowing her frame. It looks ridiculous. It looks perfect.
Ian watches her walk down the hall and nudges me with his elbow. “I feel like that’s a marriage proposal.”
I narrow my eyes. “What the fuck are you on about?”
“You gave her your jacket. Younevergive anyone your jacket.”
“Her dress was torn.”
“Her dress was torn becauseyoutore it.”
“Her dress was already a problem,” I mutter, stepping out.
“Her dress was fine,” he says, right on my heels. “You’re not going to say anything about the jacket?”
“There’s nothing to say about the jacket.”
“Oh, there’splentyto say.” Ian grins like a shark. “My emotionally constipated friend… you are so fucking pussy whipped it’s beautiful.”
I stop in the middle of the hallway and stare at him. “I’ve stalked her for years. Kidnapped her. Risked my life for her. Multiple times. But thejacketis what does it for you?”
Ian shrugs, completely unbothered. “What can I say? You really love that jacket.”
We step inside the apartment and the lights bloom on automatically. My gaze drifts first to the far corners, then the windows, exits, then the thin gap behind the curtains—checking for anything that doesn’t belong.
And then I stay there, watching Sophia move through the apartment without looking where she's going.
The way she drops her heels by the door like it’s the exact spot they’ve always been dropped. The way her body knows the layout—the slight lean around the kitchen island, the hitch of her hip as she scoops a glass from the cabinet. The way she presses her palm to the faucet before she pours water, like she’s checking if it’ll bite. All those learned movements when you’ve lived long enough in a place to become a place.
Ian kicks the door closed behind us, going straight to the fridge. “Beer?”
“Do you even have to ask?” I crouch without thinking and nudge Sophia’s left shoe upright, positioning it perfectly next to the other, and what’s supposed to be a slight adjustment becomes a moment of familiarity. A second of my chest expanding with something almost physical, a dull ache along the ribs. I recognize it for what it is—a need. Not the destructive kind, not exactly. Just a quiet, persistent hum under the bones, a longing for the shape her absence leaves behind. Which is fucked up, because she’s not absent. She’s right here, standing across the room, watching me with those eyes that don’t miss anything. Her head tilts slightly, and for one stupid second I want to put on my mask, hide my ugliness from her because she is so fucking beautiful, it hurts to look at her sometimes. Like now.
“I need a shower.” Sophia pads across the living room, glass of water in hand. “Be right back.” As she nears her bedroom door, she stops, and when she looks at me, I swear my heart buries a little deeper into my chest. “You’re staying, right?”
I nod, words trapped somewhere in my throat because the woman who’s been the little corner of light in my life for longer than she even knows wants me to stay.
She wants me. To stay. Fuck, it does beautiful, violent, ruinous things to me.
When she disappears into the room, Ian hands me a beer and drops on the couch.
“How did you manage it?”
I glance around the apartment some more. “Manage what?”
“Being here. I assume the psycho-bitch with weirdly long legs has no idea.”
“You assume right.” I notice one of Sophia’s coats on the hook next to Ian’s. “She’s off the grid for the next two weeks.”
“How the fuck did you make that happen?”
“I didn’t.” I take a seat on the chair, an open book lying face down on the armrest. One of hers. I touch the spine lightly. “Rowan did.”
“He knows you’re here?”
