I’m pulled from my thoughts by a knock at the front door.

What the hell? I glance at the clock to see that it’s almost eleven.

“Nash, did you order your Uber already?” I yell up in the direction of my bedroom as I pass the stairs on my way to the entry, but he doesn’t answer me.

Expecting to see some angry Uber driver waiting impatiently on my porch, I reluctantly pull open the front door, but I’m caught off-guard at the sight of Harley standing there. With his head bowed down, his hands tucked deep into the front pockets of his jeans, he slowly looks up, his eyes finding mine through the dim light of the porch lamp.

“Harley?” I gasp, not believing my own eyes.

“Hey,” he murmurs, pressing his lips together in the slightest hint of a smile.

“W-what are you doing here?”

Taking a tentative step closer, he takes a hand from his pocket, scratching the back of his neck, so obviously battling with his words. My eyes take him in from his head to his toes, but when I find him looking at me in a way I hadn’t been expecting, my heart leaps in my chest, skipping at least a few beats. The way he’s looking at me. I’ve never seen such an emotion in his eyes. And from the way he’s looking at me now, to the memory of the way in which he looked at me back at the bakery, I know straight away, he feels it too, and I can’t help but bite back the threatening smile, as my stomach somersaults deep inside of me.

“I-I um …” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “I wanted to come by and tell you that I—” He pauses again, considering, and the anticipation of his words is positively killing me. I want to scream at him to just spit it out, or at least kiss me. But I don’t. I just watch him, waiting.

After a few cleansing breaths, he meets my eyes with a small smile. “I wanted to tell you, I—” Stopping mid-sentence, his whole energy shifts so suddenly, and I watch as his gaze moves over my left shoulder, his smile falling, replaced by a deep crease pulling between his brows.

“What’d you say, Murph?”

I freeze, my heart flying up into the back of my throat at the sound of the voice coming from behind me.

Oh no.

Turning slowly, I watch as Nash staggers unsteadily down the stairs from the direction of my bedroom and, as if that’s not bad enough, he finishes pulling that damn T-shirt down over his naked torso, the state of his ruffled hair only adding to the already compromising situation.

“Harley?” He stops halfway down the stairs, gripping the bannister as his wide eyes move from Harley, to me, and back again, the whole while my mind is racing a million miles a minute as to how to explain.

I turn back to Harley, my face stark like a deer caught in headlights despite trying my most nonchalant smile, but I’m met with a hardness in his eyes that cuts straight through me.