Page 105 of The Wild Card

“It doesn’t.”

“What’s the most impulsive thing you’ve ever done?” I ask, steering our conversation away from the heaviness in my heart.

“Adding the girlfriend clause while you sat in my living room.” He actually laughs at that.

“That was impulsive? It was seventeen pages with color-coded tabs!”

“Adding the clause itself was impulsive. The rest of the document was ready.”

I’m laughing now, really laughing, and he’s smiling—that rare, soft smile that transforms his whole face—and I think this is what it could be like. This is what we could have.

If it were real.

We trade questions for another hour. Silly ones—favorite movie (he settles on Die Hard, which tracks), worst date ever (mine involved a guy who brought his mother), most embarrassing moment (his involves accidentally tackling the wrong person during a training exercise). Serious ones—biggest regret, what we’d change about ourselves, what we want our lives to look like in ten years.

By the time the oven timer goes off, I feel like I know him. Really know him. The man underneath all the walls and routines and defensive mechanisms.

And I like him. God help me, I really like him.

* * *

Dinner is perfect.

The steaks are fall-apart tender, the focaccia golden and pillowy, the chocolate soufflé warm and rich. Crew eats like a man who’s never had a home-cooked meal in his life—which, I realize with a pang, he probably hasn’t. Not like this. Not made with love and attention and someone who wanted to feed him. Wanted to make sure he felt nurtured and cared for.

“This is incredible,” he says around a mouthful of focaccia.

“Yeah?”

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“You’re just saying that because you helped make it.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true.” He looks at me across the table, and something in his expression makes my breath catch. “Thank you, Emmie.”

“For what?”

“For this. For—” He gestures vaguely. “All of it.”

I don’t know what to say, so I just smile and steal a bite of his mashed potatoes.

Later, after the dishes are done and the leftovers are stored in Crew’s precisely labeled containers, we end up on the couch. Some movie neither of us is really watching plays on the TV. Murphy is sprawled across both our laps like a furry bridge.

I don’t remember falling asleep.

One minute I’m watching the credits roll, and the next I’m blinking awake in the dim glow of the TV’s screensaver, my head on Crew’s shoulder, his arm draped loosely around me. We’re tangled together in a way that should feel awkward but doesn’t.

I should move. Go to my own bed. Put some distance between us before this starts to feel like something it isn’t.

I close my eyes instead.

The sound wakes me—a low, guttural moan that makes my blood run cold.

“Crew?” I sit up, disoriented, heart pounding. The apartment is dark now, the TV having shut itself off. “Crew, what’s—”

He’s rigid beside me, every muscle locked tight. His breathing is ragged, shallow. And then he makes that sound again—not a moan, I realize. A whimper. Raw and animal and terrified.

“Crew, wake up.” I grab his shoulders, shaking him. “You’re dreaming. It’s just a dream.”