Page 58 of The Rust in Her Hair

Not that girl.

Wonderful

Lyra

Iwake up in a room I've never seen before.

For a long moment I just lie there, staring at a water stain on an unfamiliar ceiling, trying to piece together where I am.

I’m assuming it’s Owen’s guest room. I hope.

The walls are a plain, flat blue. There's a small side table and a window with the blinds drawn, thin daylight leaking around the edges.

I don't know what time it is.

Hell, I don't even know what day it is.

I could have slept four hours or fourteen.

I shift my hips, then stop. My body feels strange. Stiff and heavy from sleep, but underneath that there's a low hum I can't place. My skin is too warm, and there’s something restless coiled tight in me that I can’t figure out.

Anxious, I press a hand flat to my stomach and wait for it to fade. But it doesn't.

I sit up and pull the sheet off my legs, then I realize I'm not wearing anything under this shirt.

Right. The sweatpants.

I have a foggy memory of kicking them off, trying to get my legs free. I lean over one side of the bed and look. Nothing. I check the other side, lifting the sheet, peering under the bed frame. Nothing there either.

They’ve vanished, leaving only Owen's shirt to cover the top of my thighs.

Wonderful.

There's a closet door across the room, at the foot of the bed. I don't want to open it. Snooping through a stranger's things is exactly the kind of rude my mother would have a stroke over. But I can't walk out of here half-dressed, and I'm not spending the rest of the day hostage to a missing pair of pants.

"Sorry," I whisper to the room as I push myself up off the bed.

Every muscle in my body protests—my back, legs, and hips—as I cross the room and open the closet.

It's a small walk-in, barely big enough to turn around in. Men's clothes hang along one side, flannels and worn t-shirts with a couple of button-downs dotted here and there. A heap of dirty laundry sits piled on the floor. Everything is big and broad-shouldered and very casual. Nothing that would fit Owen's leaner frame. These must be Nico's.

I find a pair of red gym shorts on a wire hanger and pull them down.

The scent hits me as I bring them close. Pine and crisp, clean air. Like the woods after a rain.

Adrian.

My heart picks up as I bring them up to my face and inhale deeply. The smell of him settles over my skin, mixing with a gentle hazelnut aroma, and something inside me goes quiet. Like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I don't understand it, and right now, I honestly don’t care.

I step into shorts, pulling them all the way up to my belly button.

They're enormous on me, falling well past my knees, the waist loose enough to slide right off. I cinch the drawstring as tight as it'll go and knot it twice.

Good enough.

I open the bedroom door and then step outside.