Beverly

Chapter 33

33

BLAKE, 1999

18 years old

I should have gone after her.

I should have said something.

But I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I had already run the numbers in my head. I had calculated the probabilities, weighed the outcomes, and tried to predict every possible consequence. There was no equation that ended in anything but disaster. Every scenario spiraled into more problems, no matter how I arranged the variables.

I had told myself a hundred times that this was for the best. That if I let her walk away now, at least I wouldn’t have to watch her learn to hate me later.

But Beverly already hated me. She had looked me in the eye and said goodbye. Not see you later , not I’ll be home soon , not Blake, stop being an idiot and just admit you love me. Just goodbye.

The word shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did. It shouldn’t have felt like a severed artery, like she had reached into my chest with bare, merciless hands and ripped something vital from me.

But it did.

I rubbed my eyes, hard enough to see bursts of light behind my lids, and dragged in a slow breath, but it wasn’t enough to stop the sick feeling in my gut. Shifting into drive, I peeled away from the curb faster than I should have.I should have gone home, but home meant Mom’s watchful gaze and Dad’s silent expectations.

Home meant Beverly’s perfume still clinging to my hoodies.

I drove with no real destination in mind, turning corners aimlessly, running red lights just to feel something. The city blurred past me in a haze of streetlights, but I barely saw any of it. My mind was stuck on one thing. Beverly . The way her voice had cracked. The way she had hesitated for half a second before getting out of my car, as if she had been waiting for me to stop her.

I hit the freeway without so much as a glance, merging blindly into the stream of headlights. The sound of my breathing filled the car, too loud, too uneven, and my fingers flexed against the wheel. I needed a distraction. A fight. A person I could break.

A problem I could solve with my fists instead of my brain.

I pulled off on an exit that led nowhere good. Drove past closed storefronts and rundown liquor stores, past the parts of town that were just dimly lit corners and bad decisions waiting to happen.

I didn’t have a plan; I never did when I was like this.

I barely made it a block before I spotted them.

Three guys. Older than me. Standing outside a gas station, lighting cigarettes, laughing too loud. The kind of guys who didn’t need a reason to start shit. The kind of guys who would take one look at me and decide they had a problem.

Perfect.

I pulled into the lot, killed the engine, and got out of the car. The second I stepped into the glow of the flickering gas station sign, they looked up.

One of them—tall, shaved head, too many rings—grinned. “You lost or something?”

I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off the tension that had settled there, but all it did was make the itch in my knuckles worse. “Not really.”

The second guy—shorter, stockier, chewing on a toothpick—tilted his head. “You looking for trouble?”

“Yeah,” I said foolishly. “I think I am.”

That got a laugh. A dismissive this dumbass really thinks he’s about to start something kind of laugh. The third guy—quiet, lean, tired-looking—exhaled smoke, watching me like he was already deciding whether I was worth the effort.

Shaved Head took a step closer. “That right?”

I stared at him, letting the weight of my own anger settle between us like a loaded gun.

“You got a death wish, kid?”

“Something like that.” And then I swung.

I don’t remember much after that.

Just the sickening crunch of my knuckles splitting against his cheekbone. Just the way my head snapped to the side when the second guy got a hit in. Just the way it felt—the impact, the adrenaline surging through my body like something close to relief. The world blurred into fists and the taste of blood in my mouth.

For a few minutes I didn’t feel like I was drowning in the numbers that wouldn’t add up. I didn’t feel anything at all.

By the time I hit the pavement, my body was a mess of bruises and exhaustion. One of the guys spat on the ground near my head, shaking out his hand. “Crazy little shit,” he hissed.

And then they were gone.

I stayed there for a long moment, sprawled out under the open sky, breathing through the sharp pain in my jaw.

The worst part? It didn’t even hurt enough.

I dragged myself up slowly, spitting blood onto the pavement. My lip was split. My knuckles were shredded. My ribs screamed in protest as I stumbled back toward the car.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, wincing at the sting. Pain was good, though. Pain was a reminder. Pain meant I was still here. Still stuck in this body, in this city, in this life where Beverly Price could be mine if only things were different.

I leaned against the hood of Mom’s car, tilting my head back.

Above me, the sky stretched out in deep, dark blue.

The same sky that had watched her say goodbye to me.

The same sky that had watched me let her.

A thousand thoughts crashed through my mind, but the one that kept clawing its way to the front was how I’d never seen a blue that came close to the color of her eyes.

I swallowed, but the lump in my throat refused to disappear.

Closing my eyes, I let the weight of it all settle over me.

I had made my choice.

And now, I had to live with it.

* * *

I was half-asleep, caught between exhaustion and restlessness, when I heard it. A soft creak. Bare feet against the floorboards.

“Jamal is the worst driver on the planet,” Beverly complained. “Do you know what I just suffered through?”

I should’ve rolled over. Should’ve done anything but lie there with my face buried in the mattress, praying she’d keep talking.

“He picked me up because I refused to get in a car with Reese after that disaster of a date—” Her voice was sharp, dripping with annoyance, as if she had been holding it in the whole way home and needed somewhere to dump it.

Jamal had only picked her up because I’d told him to.

Because I knew she wouldn’t call me.

But the way she was ranting, it was as if nothing had ever happened, as if there was no reason I shouldn’t have been the one driving her home.

“He wouldn’t stop talking about Tiffany,” she continued, completely unbothered by the fact that I hadn’t responded yet. “The entire drive, Blake. Like I even care what Tiffany’s new lip gloss shade is. Like I care how majestic her hair looked in the sunlight.” She snorted quietly. “Every two seconds, it was, ‘Tiff this, Tiff that, did you know Tiff once outran mall security in platform heels?’ I swear, he’s obsessed. You should’ve seen him. Kept checking his rearview mirror like he thought she was following us or something.”

I let out a slow breath, wincing as my ribs protested.

She was still talking.

“And then I told him to change the station because if I heard one more Mariah Carey song, I was going to lose it.”

“I mean, I—” I heard her drop her bag onto my floor. “I mean, I love Mariah, but Jesus, there’s a limit.”

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch.

“He barely even acknowledged me,” she huffed. “I could’ve been a ghost sitting in his passenger seat. He was too busy going on and on about Tiffany’s laugh and how Tiffany’s smile makes him feel things and how Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany ?—”

I heard the shuffle of her skirt hitting the floor.

What …? I let one eye crack open just enough to see her pacing my room, pulling her earrings off one by one and tossing them onto my dresser. She hadn’t noticed me yet—not really.

She was just filling the space with her voice, filling the air with something I didn’t deserve to listen to anymore.

“I get it, okay? She smells good, her hair is shiny, but damn . Does he not have…hobbies? And then he had the nerve to say, ‘Bev, you think I have a shot?’ Well, I don’t know, Jamal. Maybe. Maybe if you stop talking about her like she’s a mythological creature and actually do something about it?—”

She stopped abruptly. Her eyes had finally landed on me.

I blinked at her, my brain moving in slow motion.

A mix of disbelief and something dangerously close to concern washed over Beverly’s face. “Jesus—” Her voice was lower now. Less sharp. “What happened to you?”

Before I could answer, she was already moving. The mattress dipped as she sat beside me, her fingers brushing against my cheek. “Blake.” Her voice broke on my name. “You’re bleeding.”

I exhaled slowly and let my eyes slip shut again.

I must’ve looked worse than I felt—blood dried on my split lip, bruises blooming across my cheekbone, my hands a mess of torn skin and raw knuckles.

“What happened?” she demanded, scanning every inch of me.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You look like you got thrown out of a moving car, Blake!”

“Shhh,” I hissed in a panic. “What if Dad?—”

“Blake.”

“Beverly.”

She muttered something under her breath before snapping, “Get up.”

I groaned in protest.

Her hand found my arm, fingers brushing over my wrist in a way that wasn’t gentle. She grabbed me, hauling me to my feet. “Bathroom,” she ordered.

I didn’t even try to fight it. Because she was touching me.

I let her pull me along, my legs unsteady as Beverly practically dragged me down the hallway and into her bathroom.

She flicked on the light. The brightness made me squint.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the edge of the tub.

I sat and let my head fall back against the wall, eyes half-shut, listening to the rush of water as she filled the bathtub.

Steam curled into the air as she grabbed a washcloth, wet it, and pressed it against my lips. I hissed, my muscles tensing.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, staring at me. “You’re a mess.”

“You should see the other guy,” I tried to joke, but my voice came out too flat, too tired.

She pressed a little harder. “You’re not funny.”

I swallowed, but it didn’t do much to ease the tightness in my throat. The air felt thick, suffocating, like I was caught between the weight of her gaze and the emptiness of my own thoughts.

She whispered so quietly that it almost sounded like she was afraid of the answer, “Why did you do this?”

I didn’t have a good answer, so I didn’t give her one.

I just sat there, bleeding in ways she couldn’t see.

Beverly sighed, dropped the washcloth on the floor, and pulled my shirt over my head.

“B—” I started, but she was already rolling her eyes.

“Oh, please,” she muttered under her breath, tossing my shirt aside. “Don’t act like I haven’t seen you shirtless before. You’ve been shirtless around me more times than I can count.”

I blinked at her.

I had no comeback.

Ignoring my stunned silence, Beverly unbuttoned her pink cardigan, letting it slide off her shoulders before reaching for the hem of her white top.

I looked away, focusing on the beige tiles beneath my feet.

“Come on,” she said, her voice softer now. “Get in.”

“In? In what?”

“In the bathtub, Blake.”

I risked a glance at her. “Are you sure you?—”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “You’re covered in blood, I’m sore, and frankly, I don’t care anymore.” She paused, then added with a raised brow, “Unless you’re scared?”

I wasn’t sure if it was the challenge in her tone or the way her eyes never left mine that made my heart beat a little faster.

Still, I stripped down to my boxers and stepped into the tub. The hot water stung at first, my cuts and bruises burning like fire. But then I relaxed. The warmth seeped into my muscles, dulling the pain just enough to make me forget how much I hurt.

Beverly joined me, settling across from me. Her skin was flushed from the heat, her hair damp from the steam, and she sighed like she had never been more exhausted in her life.

“I was going to take a bath anyway,” she said with a sigh, more to herself than to me. “My cramps are killing me.”

I wanted to say something comforting, to acknowledge it somehow, but what could I offer? Words never seemed to be enough. It wasn’t like I could take her pain away.

She stretched one foot out, pressing it against my chest, nudging me lightly. “You okay?”

I let my head rest against the cool tile. “Sure.”

Beverly tilted her head, watching me for a second before pressing her foot harder against my chest.

I grabbed her ankle before she could do it again. She sucked in a quiet breath as I rubbed slow, firm circles over the arch of her foot, kneading the muscle.

She didn’t pull away, letting me work my hands over her ankle, then up her calf.

Her lashes fluttered. She wouldn’t admit it, but she loved this.

I moved to her other foot, carefully repeating the motion, and she let her head rest against the edge of the tub, her eyelids heavy with relaxation. “You’re not getting out of this bath until I say so,” she said, her voice quieter now.

“I’m not exactly in a rush, B.”

She hummed softly. “I like it when you listen.”

Laughing to myself, I pressed my thumb a little harder into the ball of her foot, and she made a sound—soft, breathy, barely there, but enough to make my pulse stutter.

I needed something to focus on before I did something stupid.

So I reached behind me, grabbed the pink nail polish from the basket on the counter, and uncapped it with my teeth.

Beverly frowned. “What?—”

“Shut up,” I muttered. “I’m busy.”

She huffed but didn’t pull away.

“You’re the one who wanted to take a bath with me,” I reminded her, steadying her foot in my hand.

I painted her toes carefully, as if the stupid pink polish actually mattered. As if, by focusing hard enough on this, I could avoid thinking about the mess I’d made of everything else.

Beverly sighed, but it wasn’t frustration. I knew her. I knew she liked being taken care of, even when she pretended she didn’t.

“You’ve never painted my nails before…”

“You never asked,” I said, moving on to the next toe.

Her foot flexed slightly in my grip. “Blake,” she said softly.

I didn’t dare look up.

“Why are you doing this?”

I pressed my lips together. Paused. “You know why.”

She sighed, a sound that could have meant a thousand things, but I didn’t let myself analyze it. I kept painting, slow and even. When I finished the last toe, I blew gently on it, watching the soft pink dry.

Beverly wiggled her foot, staring at my work. “Well…”

“You like it.”

She rolled her eyes, but the smile tugging at the corner of her lips told me everything I needed to know.

A sharp knock on the door made us both freeze.

Beverly jerked her foot away so fast she nearly slipped under the water. I caught her knee on reflex, steadying her before she could drown herself out of sheer panic.

“Beverly?” Mom’s voice. “Are you in there?”

Beverly’s entire body locked up. Her eyes went wide.

“Yeah!” she called, too loudly and too quickly.

A pause.

“Have you seen Blake?”

I rubbed my hands over my face, forcing my breath to even out.

Beverly shot me a look. A do not make a sound look .

She cleared her throat. “Uh, no. I think he went out.”

Another pause.

After what felt like an eternity, Mom spoke again. “Okay.”

It wasn’t until the footsteps had completely disappeared that either of us breathed again. Beverly slowly turned her head toward me, her expression unreadable. She sank lower into the water, tilting her face toward the ceiling, her fingers trailing idly through the water.

I watched her for a long moment, letting the silence settle, listening to the faint sound of water lapping against porcelain.

“You’re staring,” Beverly said without looking at me.

“So?” I shrugged, making no effort to look away.

Her lips parted, as if she was about to say something, but then she shut her mouth. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and I knew that whatever she was thinking, she wouldn’t say it out loud.

We sat like that for a long time. I found myself staring, almost hypnotized, as her fingers skimmed the surface of the water, tracing lazy patterns like she was writing something only she could understand.

Unable to endure the silence any longer, I cleared my throat. “Was the date really that bad?”

Beverly snorted. “He asked me if I believed in soulmates .”

I blinked. “And?”

“And then he said, ‘Because I think you might be mine.’”

“Jesus Christ.”

She sighed, dragging a wet hand over her face like she was trying to physically wipe the memory away. “It was like a bad rom-com. It felt like he was reading from a script. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I mean, come on. ‘I think you might be my soulmate’? What do you even say to that? Thank you ?Let’s plan the wedding? It was so awkward. I almost felt bad for him.”

“Almost?”

“Well, then he started talking about fate and how he doesn’t believe in coincidences and how maybe the universe put us at the same theater every weekend for a reason?—”

“What’d you say?”

Beverly’s fingers stilled in the water. “Huh?”

“To Reese,” I clarified. “When he got all deep about soulmates. What’d you say?”

“I told him I don’t believe in soulmates.”

I raised a brow. “Liar.”

She scowled at me. “I’m not a liar.”

“You used to say you did,” I reminded her.

Beverly hesitated, and in that brief pause, I knew she remembered. She remembered sitting under the oak tree in our backyard when we were kids, whispering about soulmates like they were something sacred. Something inevitable.

I could almost hear her voice again, younger, softer, filled with quiet certainty. There’s someone out there for everyone , she’d said back then, twirling a blade of grass between her fingers. Someone who fits so perfectly it’s like they were made just for you.

“I was twelve,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I also thought that if I wished hard enough, unicorns would appear in the backyard, and that if I stared at the sky long enough, I’d see a shooting star.”

“You did stare at the sky for five hours once,” I reminded her. “Gave yourself a sunburn,” I added, a grin tugging at my lips.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. That was probably the worst sunburn I’ve ever had.”

I watched her for a long moment, my chest tightening. “So, what do you believe now?”

She exhaled, tilting her head against the edge of the tub, watching me. “I believe in love,” she said after a moment. “Just…not the kind people think they want.” I watched her fingers trail through the water, tracing invisible shapes, like she was still thinking it through. “People want love to be this big thing,” she said. “Some grand, all-consuming, meant-to-be kind of thing. The kind that comes with dramatic declarations and fate pulling two people together in impossible ways.”

I nodded slightly, letting her keep going.

“But I don’t think love is supposed to be some big thing. It’s not the big confessions in the rain, or the dramatic kisses in an airport before someone gets on a plane. It’s not supposed to be all these pre-planned, perfectly packaged moments. I think real love is quieter. Smaller.” She paused, staring up at the ceiling. “I think love is in the little things. Like… I don’t know. Like making sure the other person gets home safe. Like tying someone’s shoelaces when they’re too tired to do it themselves. Or knowing which songs to skip when you’re in a bad mood. Or always letting them have the last bite, even if you really want it. Love is pulling the blankets over someone in the middle of the night. Looking at them during the best part of a movie, just to see if they’re smiling. Memorizing their order at every fast-food place. Saying ‘text me when you get home,’ and actually staying up until they do. Sitting on the bathroom floor with them when they’re sick, even if they tell you to leave.”

I swallowed hard.

I knew that one was about me.

She kept talking, her voice quiet. “I think real love is just…noticing things. Remembering things. Not the big things, birthdays, anniversaries, whatever. But the little things. The way someone folds their napkin before they eat, or how they always ask for extra pepperoni on their pizza. People get caught up in the idea that love is supposed to be overwhelming, that it’s supposed to sweep you off your feet, take your breath away, and make your heart race all the time. But I think the best love is the kind that feels like breathing. Easy. Natural. Like you don’t even have to think about it. Real love is when someone sees you. Really sees you. Not just the version of you that you show the world, but the you that exists when no one else is looking.” She shrugged slightly. “Someone who knows when you’re lying about being fine, and someone who doesn’t let you push them away when you’re hurting. Someone who knows how to make you laugh when you don’t want to. Someone who makes the bad days easier, just by being there.Love isn’t ‘I’d die without you.’ It’s the little things. It’s ‘I made your favorite pasta because I know you had a long day.’ It’s ‘I saw this book and thought of you.’”

I was going to die.

I was going to die in this bathtub.

I exhaled slowly and said, “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

“I think most people mistake attraction for love. Attraction is like…a sugar rush. It’s fast, intense, and it makes your heart race, but it doesn’t last. It’s just your brain reacting to something exciting, right? People want someone to fix them, to make their life better, to fill in all the empty spaces. But when that person can’t do it, they start looking for someone else.” She let out a sigh, as if this conversation physically pained her. “ Love is being seen. Love is when someone could ruin you, but you trust them not to. Love is patience. It’s choosing someone over and over again, even when it’s not convenient. Even when it’s hard.”

She was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought, unaware of the way her words were dismantling me piece by piece.

“What about you?” she asked.

I blinked. “What about me?”

She stared at me for a long time, her eyes searching mine as if she were looking for something she wasn’t sure she wanted to find. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

“I believe in math.”

She rolled her eyes, kicking at me under the water. “Shut up.”

I caught her ankle, trapping it in my grip and settling her foot against my thigh. “I don’t know, Beverly.”

“Come on. If anyone had a theory on this, it’d be you.”

I raised an amused brow. “A theory?”

She waved a lazy hand. “Yeah, like…you’ve thought about it before, right? About what love is supposed to be.”

I had thought about it before. I had thought about it every time I watched Dad come home late and sit beside Mom on the couch, rubbing slow circles against her back even when he was too exhausted to hold a conversation. I had thought about it every time I caught her pressing a kiss to his temple before bed, or the way his entire body seemed to relax when she laughed.

I had thought about it when I saw Jamal’s parents move through their kitchen like they were performing a routine they had spent a lifetime perfecting—passing ingredients back and forth, tasting each other’s food, bumping shoulders at the stove.

I had thought about it every single time I had watched Beverly and felt something tighten in my ribs. Every time I had caught her humming under her breath, or biting her lip while she read, or tying her hair up without thinking. Every time I had seen her laugh with someone else and felt something vicious curl inside me.

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my jaw. “I don’t think there’s one person for everyone. That’s too easy. The world’s not built that way. People are messy. They break each other, they fix each other, they try again?—”

“That’s not a real answer, Blake. What do you think love is?”

A hundred answers sat on my tongue.

Love was the pink nail polish drying on her toes, smudged because I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. Love was hearing a song I didn’t even like and thinking, Beverly would love this. Love was knowing which parts of a song made Beverly close her eyes. Love was fighting the urge to touch her every time my hands were empty. Love was wanting to tell her things before I even understood them myself. Love was knowing she kept a pink lighter in her bag, not because she smoked, but because she liked the way it looked. Love was watching her laugh at something she wasn’t supposed to, biting her lip to keep it in, but failing miserably. Love was knowing that her first instinct when she was sad wasn’t to cry, but to get angry. Love was the way my chest ached with every step she took away from me. Love was everything I couldn’t hold, everything I wasn’t supposed to want, everything I had been trying to forget but never really could. Love was realizing I could name a thousand more things, and still never run out of ways to say her .

But I didn’t say any of it.

I just looked at her, swallowing every answer I had, and said, “Love is knowing someone so well that you could build them from memory.”

Beverly hummed, but she didn’t reply.

“I think some people don’t know how to explain it. So they say dumb stuff like Reese did,” I muttered, almost as an afterthought, my voice rougher than I intended.

“Explain what?”

“The feeling. The one that makes you want to argue with someone just so they’ll look at you, just so you can watch their eyes spark when they’re annoyed. The one that makes you want to pick up the phone at two in the morning because you know they’re awake, too. The one that makes you want to reach for their hand, just to see if it would fit the way you know it would. Just to see if they’d pull away. The one that makes you look at them, across a room, across a crowded street, across years of knowing them, and think, ‘ There you are .’ The one that ruins every other person for you. The one that makes you sit in the dark, trying to come up with reasons why you shouldn’t care…and none of them stick.”

The bathroom was silent.

Because there was nothing left to say.

Beverly wasn’t looking at me anymore, but I saw the way her throat worked, the way her lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t trust herself to speak.

A single drop of condensation trailed down her collarbone, disappearing beneath the thin strap of her white bra. I couldn’t stop myself from watching it, even as I tried to focus elsewhere.

I rubbed a hand over my face, dragging in a slow breath. Then my gaze drifted down, locking on her hand as it continued tracing lazy, impossible-to-read patterns across the surface of the water.

“You’re writing something,” I murmured.

Her lips curved slightly. “Maybe.”

“What is it?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Our names.”

Something cracked open inside me.

She didn’t look at me when she said it.

She didn’t acknowledge the weight of it.

But I felt it in my ribs—a dull ache that stretched deeper than the bruises, settling in the hollow space between my lungs and my heart. It lingered in every stupid, reckless part of me that had been screaming for months.

Beverly must have realized how that sounded, because she let out a quiet, almost bitter laugh. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said immediately.

She blinked at me, her expression softening.

I wanted to grab her wrist, shake her, and make her believe me. It’s not stupid. You’re not stupid. If you’re stupid, then so am I.

For a moment, she just stared at me. I could see the questions forming behind her eyes, could practically hear the words she wanted to say. But she didn’t say them. Instead, she exhaled slowly and reached for a washcloth, soaking it in warm water before pressing it against my ribs.

I sucked in a breath through my teeth, hissing at the contact.

“Hold still.”

I clenched my jaw and did as she said.

“I hate you for this,” she muttered, and I didn’t know if she meant the bruises or the fact that I let her see them.

I exhaled shakily, my fingers squeezing hers. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say it was okay.

But she leaned closer and pressed her cheek against my shoulder. “I missed you,” she whispered, the words barely audible. “I hate you, and I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, B.”

“Reese kissed me.”

The world tilted. Something ugly curled in my stomach, something sharp and burning, something that made my fingers clench against the side of the tub.

I kept my expression blank, my voice flat. “Yeah?”

She dragged the washcloth down my chest. “Yeah.”

I blinked, trying to ignore the way my pulse was pounding in my ears. “Did you like it?”

She hummed like she was considering it. “It was…fine?”

I swallowed against the burning in my throat.

Beverly rinsed the washcloth, wringing it out over the water, and for a second, the only sound was the steady drip-drip-drip of it falling between us. Then, quieter, “I kept thinking about you.”

Jesus Christ.

The air felt too thick.

The space between us too thin.

Her fingers brushed against my ribs, slow and careful, the warmth of the washcloth nothing compared to the heat of her touch. “I kept thinking about how it wasn’t you,” she murmured.

A shiver crawled down my spine. I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat, from her voice, or from the way she was looking at me.

Her voice softened to a whisper, barely more than a breath. “Do you ever think about me, Blake?”

A slow, uneven breath escaped me. My body answered before my mind could catch up, before logic could stop me.

I gripped her wrist, my fingers curling around her pulse, feeling the way it jumped beneath my touch.

Beverly didn’t pull away. Didn’t say a word when I dragged her forward, pulling her into my lap. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub, soaking the tile floor, but I didn’t care.

All I cared about was her knees bracketing my hips.

Her hands settling on my shoulders.

The way she was breathing too fast.

The way she wasn’t breathing at all.

I swallowed hard, my fingers flexing against her waist.

I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t think straight.

I wanted to tell her that no matter how many reasons I came up with for why this was a bad idea, none of them had ever been enough to make me stop wanting her. I wanted to tell her that she was the reason I couldn’t sleep, the reason I couldn’t breathe, the reason I kept making all the wrong choices just to forget how badly I wanted to make the right one.

But instead, I closed my eyes.

Because if I looked at her for one more second, I was going to lose every bit of control I had left.

Her fingers twitched against my skin, like she could sense the war happening inside of me. I tightened my arm around her waist, guiding her until she was tucked against me, her head resting against my shoulder. She let out a long, shaky breath—one that felt as if she’d been holding it in for weeks. Her fingers slid up, tangling in my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp.

For a long time, we just sat there, the water cooling around us, the bathroom quiet except for the sound of our breathing.

I let my hand drift up her spine, tracing slow patterns against the bare space between her shoulder blades.

I wrote her name. Over and over again.

Beverly.

Beverly.

Beverly.

Not because she would feel the shape of each letter pressing into her skin or wake up with my name carved into her bones the way hers was carved into mine.

But because I couldn’t stop.

Because I was still bleeding.

Still hers.

Because I knew that tomorrow, when the sun cracked open the sky and forced reality between us, I’d wake up, and she’d still be the thing I wanted more than I wanted to breathe.

And Beverly still wouldn’t be mine.