“Good stuff for you out there, Carson,” she said, tipping her head very slightly toward his car, telling him he had her support. Telling him she agreed with what he was doing. Telling him she didn’t think he was weak. Pathetic. A loser. Lame. Telling him she thought something else entirely. “Good stuff. A good life. A beautiful life. You’ll get it. I know it. Because you deserve it.”

Not knowing what else to say, he muttered, “Thanks.”

“I’m picking up my mom, but after I drop her off at home, do you want… I mean, are you in a hurry?”

After asking that, she grinned at him.

His world ended.

Right there, his world was done. Because there was nothing that would be better than Carissa Teodoro standing a foot away with her hand warm on his, grinning up at him.

Nothing.

“We could go have a Blizzard before you go,” she finished.

“Gotta get where I’m goin’.”

It killed him, but that was his response.

This was because she was not his to have.

She was golden. Nothing beat her. She smiled through pain and made you believe it.

He’d just kicked his father in the face after beating the shit out of him because he was done getting his ass kicked for anything, much less something as stupid as an oil stain on the garage floor.

That was his life. That was him.

That meant he had no business having a Blizzard with Carissa Teodoro.

She didn’t need the darkness that gathered inside him, bigger and bigger every day. Darkness he had to fight back so it didn’t black him out.

She needed to stay golden.

And Carson Steele had no idea in that moment as the darkness swept through him that, in turning down that Blizzard, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.

And he’d changed the course of hers in a way that he would have bled to have stopped it. Bled until he was dry so she could have better.

In that moment, in the parking garage outside Swedish, she was disappointed. She didn’t hide it.

But she did curl her fingers tighter on his and lean in.

She smelled like flowers.

“Okay, Carson,” she said softly. “Go after your beautiful life.”

He cleared his throat, pulled his hand from under hers, and muttered, “Will do.”

Her grin became a smile.

Then she proved him wrong.

His world hadn’t ended a minute earlier.

It ended then, when she leaned in, going up on her toes, lifting her hand to curl it on his shoulder as she reached high to touch her lips to his cheek.

He stood stock-still.