I froze, a painful chill washing over me for more reasons than I could keep up with. The sound of Clay’s name, the memory of what had happened between us, the reminder that I wasn’t dating him — not really — all hit me at once.

I swallowed. “Why does it matter?”

“Because I can’t figure it out,” Shawn answered honestly. “Not for the life of me. You know, I thought he was cool, but then I’ve watched the way he’s treated you. That night in the club when he was basically molesting you for everyone to see? And then at The Pit, when he took that body shot off another girl?”

Fake. All of it was fake.

“She didn’t mean anything to him,” I whispered.

“Well, do you?”

I frowned, looking up to find Shawn watching me like I was a poor, pathetic girl who didn’t realize I was being abused.

But he didn’t know what happened when no one was looking.

“You deserve to be happy, Giana,” Shawn said. “And you deserve a man who treats you like the princess you are.”

I couldn’t hide my face twisting at that.

Princess? Ew.

I somehow smiled through it, though. “Well, thank you,” I said. “And thank you for this. It’s… honestly? The most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Shawn sat up straighter, shoulders square. “Good. I’m happy to have that title.”

The conversation was easy after that. Fortunately, Shawn dropped anything related to Clay and focused on getting to know me, on telling me more about him. I smiled as I listened to him tell me about growing up in a van with his hippy parents, how he’d been to more music festivals at the age of ten than most people went to in their entire lives. And he leaned over the table, completely enraptured as I told him about my siblings, and my love for smutty books.

Before I knew it, dinner was done, and we moved over to the small sofa. For a long time we continued talking, but then Shawn flicked through his Netflix and turned on a documentary that I, miraculously, hadn’t seen yet. He said he knew I’d love it, if I loved nerding out about space.

And I did.

We sank back into the leather cushions, Shawn offering one of his blankets to me and covering up with another. But as the documentary went on, I felt him moving closer and closer, the distance between us narrowing until his arm was somehow around the back of the couch and thus me, too.

My heart hammered in my ears, and I was acutely aware of every breath he took, every centimeter his arm traveled until it was resting around me. I couldn’t pay attention to anything, least of all the monotone man listing out how infinite the galaxy was.

My galaxy was currently revolving around Shawn Stetson.