Page 170 of Rising Heat

“Finishing the wing. Do not rush the wing.”

She’s gone full black— leather leggings, a sleeveless chiffon crop, heels that add three inches she doesn’t need, hair blown out smooth and pulled back into a slick ponytail.

She looks like she showed up with somewhere better to be and decided to stay anyway. Which, somehow, is just…Bex.

“You look incredible,” I say.

“I know,” she says. “Your turn.”

She turns from the mirror and looks me over.

“Oooh.”

“What?”

I look myself over, trying to see whatever she’s seeing.

The brown corduroy mini skirt. Knee-high suede boots. A fitted black long sleeve. The earrings I bought myself on a random Tuesday in February because they made me smile and, for once, that felt like a good enough reason.

I’d bought the skirt two years ago and worn it exactly once before Brett gave it one of those looks that somehow wasn’t a comment and still managed to become one. It disappeared to the back of the closet after that. I didn’t think about it again until I packed up everything that was mine and drove to Boston.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Your face is.”

“My face is appreciating the moment.” She reaches past me for the mascara before handing it back. “They’re going to lose their minds, by the way.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“I know it’s not the point,” she says before I can finish. “I’m just telling you now so you don’t act surprised later.”

Heat creeps up my neck anyway, and I roll my eyes like that somehow does anything to hide it.

“Bex.”

“What?” She leans against the bathroom doorframe, looking unbearably smug. “You finally look comfortable in your own skin again.”

Her teasing disappears as soon as she says it, but before I can figure out what to do with that, she pushes off the doorframe and heads down the hall.

I linger in front of the mirror for another second.

Yeah, I do.

The night finally feels like spring, Boston slipping into that in-between season where everyone collectively decides winter is over whether the weather agrees or not.

Bex walks beside me with her hands tucked into her coat pockets, taking everything in—storefronts, side streets, groups spilling out of restaurants, the rhythm of the neighborhood itself.

She doesn’t say much for most of the walk, which, from Bex, means she’s observing, not distracted, and I’ve known her long enough to recognize the difference.

“This is your neighborhood,” she says eventually as we cut down Columbus.

“Yeah.”

Her gaze drifts up the block, then back to me.

“It makes sense.”

“What does?”