Haven adjusts beside me, exhaling just a little too fast, like she’s been holding her breath, like she doesn’t quite know how to sit in this moment now that Tate has turned his attention to her.

I glance at her, catch the way her fingers curl against her knee, the way she’s suddenly too aware of the way both of us are looking at her, the way heat creeps up her neck.

She’s flustered. Not just from Tate’s presence, not just from the weight of his gaze, but from the fact that I just dismissed whatever angle he was trying to play, shut down whatever idea he was planting before it could take root. I just made it clear that whatever Tate thinks happened between them? It was nothing.

Tate doesn’t like being nothing. His smirk returns, but it’s different now, colder. He finally pushes back. “Yeah?” he murmurs, stepping further into the room, not breaking eye contact with me, not even glancing at Haven now, like he’s only talking to me. “Then why does she look like she’s not sure you’re right?”

My stomach fucking drops, because I feel it the second Haven stiffens beside me. He fucking sees it too. And for a brief, fleeting moment, I think he’s finally going to leave it alone. That he’s had his fun, that he got what he wanted, that he’s going to disappear upstairs without throwing another goddamn grenade into the room. Of course, I should know better.

He pauses in the doorway, cocks his head slightly, like he’s considering something. Then, with that same deliberate confidence that makes my blood pressure skyrocket, he finally speaks. “Alright, Carter,” he say, voice low, making it somehow even worse. “You can stop being a pussy now and kiss her—”

I already know I’m about to regret existing.

“—like you wish you could while you touch yourself at night.”

The air fucking disappears from the room. My stomach drops straight to the goddamn floor. Haven inhales so sharply it’s like she just got slapped.

Tate fucking walks back upstairs like he didn’t just ruin my entire existence in one sentence. Like he didn’t just shatter the fragile fucking grip I had on this night.

I don’t move, I physically cannot move. My pulse is pounding, hammering, my entire body locked in place, my jaw tight enough to break, my muscles tense like I just got hit by a goddamn truck.

I realize Haven is still staring at me. I turn my head, hesitant, reluctant, already knowing I’m going to hate whatever expression she’s wearing. Yep, she looks like she just got her entire fucking world flipped upside down.