I shake my head, locking my arms around his waist. He’s so lean and solid. He smells like a morning walk in the woods. And when I close my eyes, I picture it so easily—our hands tangled, nothing but the sound of wildlife hidden in the trees, twigs snapping beneath our feet, the dim roar of the nearby sea.

Sighing, I whisper against his chest, “Just this.”

· TWENTY-TWO ·

Jamie

Something is happening to me. Something frightening.

When I saw Bea, looking lost and too close to tears, a force I’ve never known in my life roared through my body. It was raw and base and violent. Something had hurt her. Something just beneath the surface of that tough exterior, those sharp tattoos and fierce eyes and shocking blond-tipped hair. And I wanted to crush it.

To the outsider, I imagine I looked calm as always, unruffled as ever. But inside, when I tugged her against me—now, as she grips me like a life raft—I’ve never felt so primally protective.

“Thanks,” she whispers.

I swipe my thumbs beneath her eyes to wipe away her tears, cradling her face in my hands. Then I lower my head and meet her eyes.

Over chess on Wednesday, we made a plan for game night: we’d kiss thoroughly in greeting, stay handsy throughout the night. Give them something to talk about. But Bea showing up in tears, clinging to me like this, is as far off script as it gets. I won’t risk the chance that she’s no longer all right with what we planned, so I ask, “Do you still want me to kiss you?”

“Yes.” She nods, her touch resting at my waist, fingers tracing my ribs. Her eyes slip shut as she sways closer. “For plausibility’s sake.”

I stare at her. Dark lashes, the freckle just beneath her left eye. The delicate upturn of her nose and those rosebud lips.

The truth snaps into place.

I don’t want to kiss Beatrice Wilmot under false pretenses. I want to kiss her simply for kissing’s sake. No angle to it, no vengeful intent.

And I have no idea if Bea will ever want what I want. Real, not fake. Just us.

Anxiety tightens its bands around my chest, pinches my lungs. What if, once again, I’m not enough? What if, when I tell Bea what I feel, she looks at me with the same frustrated discomfort that tightened Lauren’s expression when I realized how little I’d actually meant to her?

I can’t risk that, can’t face the possibility that Bea will tell me this means nothing more than what we agreed it would.