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The question carried too many possible endings.

I placed one hand against the wall beside her and leaned close enough to smell the perfume that had haunted me since the library.

“No.”

Her disappointment appeared before she controlled it.

“I can talk to you here,” I said. “Going inside would involve significantly less talking.”

Heat moved through her expression. “You sound confident.”

“I remember what happens when you close a door behind us.”

“So do I.”

“I’m trying to make one intelligent decision tonight.”

“Only one?”

“I don’t want to overcommit.”

Charm leaned one shoulder against the door. Candlelight warmed the blonde in her hair and caught the faint strawberry highlights around her face. Her eyes remained clear enough to destroy any lie blaming what passed between us on alcohol.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” she said.

A low laugh moved through me. “That invitation sounds dangerous.”

“It wasn’t an invitation.”

“Bullshit.”

Her mouth curved. “Maybe I wanted to see what you’d do with it.”

“You already know.”

“I used to.”

The answer found the wound beneath the easy hours we’d shared and pressed directly into it.

Charm’s smile faded. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.”

“I don’t think either of us knows what tonight means.”

“It means we drank too much and remembered we’re good at sitting beside each other.”

“We were more than good.”

“That doesn’t change anything.”

“I know it doesn’t.”

She said it without pleading or collapsing beneath the boundary, which somehow made holding it harder.

I spoke low, “you keep saying that.”

“Would you rather I argue?”