Page 51 of Never After Us
“I don’t sit,” I grumble, stepping further inside anyway.
“Like ever?”She arches an eyebrow like that seems impossible.“How do you ride in a car if you never sit?”
“That’s not?—”
“That’s exactly what you said,” she cuts in, turning just enough to raise an eyebrow.“You follow the rules when you’re in my house.”
“I didn’t agree to any rules.”
“Too late,” she sings.“You crossed to the other side.”
I sigh, refusing to tumble into this childish banter she clearly enjoys.She likes flustering me—I can see it in her eyes—and I’m not giving her the satisfaction.Still, I lower myself onto the barstool at the island, pretending it’s entirely my choice.
Mara moves around the kitchen with easy familiarity, as if she’s lived here for months instead of days, her attention shifting from cabinet to cabinet without any hesitation.
I rub my palms against my knees, trying to ground myself.
“So,” she says gently, “what pulled you out onto the balcony this early?You usually hide until the morning is half over.”
“I don’t hide.”
She smiles like she knows better.“Right.So what were you doing?Thinking?Avoiding me?Talking to the rain?”
“None of your business.”
“That’s a yes to all of them then.”
I open my mouth.Close it.Scowl, because she’s not wrong, and I hate that she knows it.
She steps closer, holding two mugs.She hands me the cat one without comment.Her fingers graze mine—barely a whisper of contact—but it shocks me.Something deep in me draws inward, a tight, involuntary clench, like some invisible thread between us just got tugged.
I look down at our hands.Then at her.
And I want to kiss her.Not because I should, but because I shouldn’t.
Because something about the way she moves, the way she looks at me like she’s not afraid of any of it—makes my restraint feel like the most fragile thing in the room.
I hate it.
I hate that the warmth of her touch still lingers, subtle and unwanted, like it’s seeped beneath my skin.
I hate that I want to lean in just to feel more of it.
And I hate that I want to want more.
“You okay?”she asks quietly.
It’s the same question she asked on the balcony.But in here—with the scent of her home in the air, a warm mug in my hands, and her standing close enough that I can feel the heat coming off her skin—it hits differently.
More intimate.
More charged.
Like she’s not just asking if I’m okay—she’s asking if I’ll let her in.
If I’ll fall apart in her hands and pretend it’s healing.
The easy thing would be to say I’m fine.
