Page 2 of Safe With You

And he wasn’t the one sitting in a parking lot waiting.

The apartment doors finally opened.

Lucas jogged through the rain with the hood of his navy sweatshirt pulled over his head, the navy fabric pulling across his broad shoulders as he hunched against the weather. He yanked the passenger door open, bringing a rush of cool air and rain inside before sliding into the seat beside me.

“Damn,” he said, brushing water from his sleeves. “It’s really coming down.”

The door shut, and just like that, it was quiet again.

The rain drummed against the roof while the heater hummed softly beneath the dashboard. His cologne filled the car almost immediately—warm, familiar, the same one he’d worn for years. I hated how comforting it still was.

He reached up to push his hood back, revealing freshly brushed waves and that crooked smile that had gotten him out of more arguments than it ever should’ve. The small tattoo beneath his eye moved with the smile, the little patch of hair at his chin freshly trimmed.

“What?” he asked.

I looked at him for a second. “You really don’t know?”

His smile faded. “Luna.”

“You had me sitting out here almost thirty minutes.”

He glanced toward the windshield like the rain might somehow defend him. “It wasn’t that long.”

I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I looked at the clock.

7:54.

Then back at him. “The clock’s right there.”

He followed my eyes before letting out a quiet breath. “Aight...maybe twenty.”

“It was twenty-eight.”

His eyebrows lifted, and he stared at me for a second before exhaling through his nose. “You counted?”

“That’s the part you took from what I said?”

“I’m just saying.” He relaxed back into the seat. “You act like I left you stranded.”

Something in me tightened because that was always how this went. I’d express hurt, and somehow the conversation would shift into me overreacting instead of him understanding why I was upset in the first place.

“You knew I was outside.”

“And I came downstairs.”

Eventually.

The word sat heavy on my tongue, but I swallowed it.

Lucas reached over and rested his hand on my knee like he always did whenever he wanted the conversation to soften. Normally, it worked. There had been plenty of times when one touch from him was enough to make me decide whatever bothered me wasn’t worth ruining the rest of the night over.

Tonight, I looked down at his hand for a long moment before gently lifting it and placing it back in his lap.

He blinked. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“This bullshit you doing right now.”