I froze on her lap, resting my chin on top of her head.

“Don’t move,” I whispered. “Maybe she’ll just go away.”

“Who the fuck would it even be this late?”

“My mom, probably. That sounds like how she knocks.”

Another knock came as if on cue, so light and questing it didn’t even wake Jas by the hearth. My mother, a lifelong night owl, had likely seen the flicker of candlelight through my windows and surmised that I also wasn’t asleep. And bless her heart, she had no reason to think I might be having this kind of company.

The knock came again, but more wanly this time. After a long moment of strained silence, I could hear the receding slap of her slippers on the pavers as she headed back toward the house.

With a whooshing sigh, I shimmied off Talia’s lap, slumping against the loveseat with arms crossed over my middle, the pilled chenille of the cushions cold and scratchy against my bare back.

“So,” Talia said conversationally, turning to look at me from where her head rested against the loveseat’s back, “should we have invited her in, do you think?”

I burst out laughing, flinging my forearms over my face. “Stop.”

“I mean, it would have been the polite thing to do. We’re all adults here, and there’s plenty more oranges, and I feel extremely confident you have more canned wine—”

I groaned into my arms. “I hate you, Avramov. I really, truly hate you.”

“I have it on the best kind of authority that you don’t, Harlow.”

So we were back on last-name terms, then; even though I’d started it, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The atmosphere had certainly shifted between us, that crackling tension momentarily fizzled out, blanketed by awkwardness.

“But I do think . . .” Talia peeled my arms off my face enough to let me see the amused glint of her eyes, the color slowly subsiding in her cheeks, “it may be time for me to clear out.”

“I’m afraid so,” I said, my own cheeks still ablaze. “My mom could take it upon herself to come back and check on me again. Make sure I don’t burn the house down, sleeping with the candles lit. Safety first!”

“Kind of what I figured.” She got up, flashing me that lupine smile. As I tugged my blouse back over my head, still throbbing with unslaked desire, she gathered up her things and moved to the door. “Harlow . . . thanks for tonight. I’d say I had fun, but that doesn’t quite cover it.”

I smiled despite myself. “I know exactly what you mean. And, uh, me too.”

“Well, okay, then.” She flicked me a parting smile over her shoulder. “See you soon.”

Once she was gone, half of me deflated at her absence, while the rest of me flooded with something like relief. Telling her about my tattoos had laid me bare, in a way I would normally never tolerate with someone so new. And now that my head was beginning to clear, all I could hear was the damning echo of what I’d said to her when she asked how I felt about Thistle Grove.