“Okay,” he said, when I’d opened and closed my mouth twice without managing an actual response. “I know that’s a lot to chew on at once, but I need you to understand something.” When I nodded, he took a deep breath and continued, in Reese’s voice. “I may not know for sure what I am, but I know who I am. I’m left-handed, no matter whose body I’m in. I love spicy food and hate licorice, no matter whose tongue I taste it with. My favorite color is blue—the exact shade of the deepest blue in your eyes,” he said, his gaze glued to mine, and something deep in my stomach flip-flopped so hard and fast I almost lost my balance sitting still on the couch. “I’ve learned a lot about who you are too.”

I shook my head, denying what couldn’t possibly be true. “We met less than twenty-four hours ago.”

“It’s not the amount of time that matters, Nina. It’s what you do with it.”

“What did you do with the time?” My voice was only half a whisper. That was all I could manage with him looking at me like that. As if nothing else in the world existed. As if there was only me, and this moment.

“I paid attention.”

“To me?”

“To everything. To the green peas you picked out of your beef stew. To your secondhand clothes.” He ran one finger over the frayed hem of my long-sleeve T-shirt. “To the way you frown when you’re thinking, as if your disapproval should be enough to change whatever’s wrong.” He blinked and his focus deepened somehow, as if he could see right through my eyes and into my soul. “I paid attention to the fact that you got your sister out of the house and faced down that demon yourself, with no idea you could actually handle the fight. And I paid very close attention to the way you kissed me back.”

My cheeks flushed bright red at the bottom edge of my vision, and the memory of that kiss warmed me everywhere else.

He reached for my hand and I let him take it, but my fingers wouldn’t relax in his grip, because it wasn’t his grip. It was Reese’s. I frowned. This new hand was broader, its fingers longer. This hand felt different. It didn’t feel like Finn. This hand swallowed mine like it had when I’d shaken Reese’s hand.

I’d been introduced to this hand as Reese’s, and because of that, it would always feel like Reese’s hand to me.