“You’re still cold,” he said with a frown. “Do you want me to get the hot tub started? I can—”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’m not really cold. Anxious and worried more than anything.”

“Serena means a lot to you,” he said quietly.

I closed my eyes and leaned back into the couch, taking another sip of gin. “Serena is the best person in the entire world, and she’s the only one I trust. I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for her. She’s the only one who believed me about…well, you know.”

“The only one?” he asked gently.

I nodded and opened my eyes to find him gazing at me with soft concern. What a strange expression to find on a demon’s face. “The only one. You’ve read the articles. It looked bad, Az. Really bad. Why would anyone believe it wasn’t me? My car. My street. On a night I was out at a party.”

“But you testified that you didn’t do it.”

“Because I didn’t,” I said more harshly than I intended.

“Then, who did?”

I sucked in a sharp breath and glanced away. “Despite all the evidence, Serena always believed me. She never once doubted my innocence even when the rest of the world did.”

Az cocked his head, tossing another corn kernel to Hendrix. “You never told her who did it?”

My heart thumped. “Az, I can’t.”

I lifted my glass to my lips and drank the whole thing down. The gin burned my belly, warming me from the inside out and driving away the chill from the rain. Silently, Az took my glass and refilled his and mine both. Then, he settled back onto the couch beside me to listen. No questions. No demands. Just patient silence. And for the first time in my life, I felt the knots around my fear unravel.

Tears burned my eyes as I took another drink. “You already know who.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” he said in a low murmur. “But I’m not the one who needs you to say it, Mia. You do. Ignoring it will never make it go away. You have to look the past in the eye and tell it to go fuck itself.”

A tense laugh popped from my throat. That was not what I’d expected him to say. “There’s a reason I’ve never told anyone.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“It won’t, Mia.” He shifted toward me and braced his arm on the back of the couch behind my head. His knee brushed mine. I tried not to stare at where his black pants melted against my skin. “You can trust me with this. I would never tell a single soul.”