Page 21 of Wanna Bet?

Like he was waiting.

Like he wanted to.

And now she was sitting on a park bench with a joint tucked inside the tiny zipper pocket of her bag, her heart beating like she’d swallowed a hummingbird, wondering if she had imagined all of it. She didn't know if he even smoked, but she knew it would calm her nerves.

Her eyes drifted back to the path again despite herself. Still empty.

You knew it.

Her stomach dipped sharply, that familiar sinking sensation she hated because it always came with the same old script. This was stupid. She shouldn’t have suggested this. She shouldn’t have–

Movement caught her attention at the curve of the paved trail.

Her brain didn’t register him immediately; it just registered shape and motion, tall and dark-shirted and walking with hands in his pockets. Then the sunlight shifted and caught the clean edge of his jaw.

Her pulse stuttered.

Jace.

Relief slammed into her so hard it almost hurt, like her ribs had been holding tension they hadn’t warned her about.

He was here. He had actually come.

He walked toward her with that same careful stride he always seemed to have, like he didn’t fully trust the ground to stay steady under him. His hair looked messier than usual, as if he had run his hands through it on the way. He wore a black T-shirt and worn jeans, a chain hooked to his belt loop glinting whenever the light hit it. Without the coffee stand counter between them, his shoulders looked broader, his height more obvious, his presence somehow bigger.

He looked–

Myah swallowed.

He looked hot. Not in a polished, magazine-cover way, not in a curated influencer aesthetic kind of way, but in a real way. In a standing in sunlight like he belongs there, way. In a someone you could accidentally stare at too long and forget why you started looking way.

Her brain, traitor that it was, supplied immediately:

​You like him.

No. Nope. Absolutely not. This is the bet. Remember the bet.

The reminder didn’t land the way it was supposed to. Instead of grounding her, it twisted something inside her chest. Because he didn’t look like a bet. He looked like someone who had shown up because she asked him to.

He spotted her then, his eyes lighting in a way that made something inside her tilt sideways. A sudden warmth leaked into her chest making her shift a little. If she wasn't thinking correctly, she’d think he looked like he was relieved she existed where he expected her to.

He lifted one hand in a small wave, his tattooed arm flexing above him.

Myah’s heart did something deeply humiliating. She forced her mouth into a smirk before he got close enough to see anything softer, because armor first had always been her rule.

“Took you long enough,” she called out.

Jace huffed a quiet laugh as he stopped in front of her. “I’m five minutes early.”

She blinked, thrown off.

He was.

She had just gotten there ridiculously early because her brain didn’t know how to behave like a normal person when anticipation was involved.

“That’s still late in Myah Time,” she replied smoothly.

“Is Myah Time a real unit,” he asked, “or something you invented so you can bully people?”