Chapter Sixteen
Skylar
The sun hangs low, throwing gold across the stairwell by the time I reach the top step.
Below, metal clangs, tools scrape, along with a muttered curse I can’t quite make out.
I tell myself not to turn. Not to glance at him. But it’s Zane. And somehow, he’s the one I keep searching for without meaning to.
He looks happy under the hood of some beat-up car, sleeves shoved past his elbows, arms deep in the guts of the engine. Grease smears the inside of his forearm, a dark mark against skin that always runs too hot.
His mouth moves, lips forming curses I can’t hear from here, probably aimed at a bolt that won’t budge or a hose that refuses to line up. Yet his movements stay calm, steady, and focused. Rooted in something that holds.
He looks happy.
I turn back to the door before he catches me staring.
My fingers wrap around the handle, and I slip inside. The door clicking shut behind me.
I drop my bag at the end of the bed and stand still for a second, frozen in the quiet.
I let out a breath I swear I’ve been holding since I woke up. The air leaves my chest slow and shaky, too heavy to carry any longer.
This isn’t home.
It’s worn-down floorboards and second-hand furniture. A borrowed place with borrowed warmth.
A just-for-now.
But, fuck, it’s something.
And right now, that’s more than I had yesterday.
I close my eyes and let the stillness settle. No one watching, waiting, or pressing.
For once, I don’t have to be anything but me.
Cassie was already waiting out the front of the school this morning, arms folded tight across her chest, foot tapping like she’d been rehearsing the lecture all night. Her face said everything before she opened her mouth.
She was pissed.
Pissed I’d ignored every single one of her texts. Let my phone blow up for hours last night and never once picked it up. She had no idea where I was, and that alone would’ve been enough to set her off.
She gave the same energy back.
Loud, relentless, not giving a shit who heard. She told me I was reckless, that I shut people out when shit gets hard, that I never let anyone help until everything’s already gone to hell.
I tried to tell her she had no right to make that call or to go to Zane behind my back.
But somewhere between all the shouting, I also told her thank you.
Because as much as I wanted to be angry, I knew the truth. She did it because she cares. Even if her brand of loyalty comes armed with fireworks and a middle finger.
I grab my homework from my bag, mostly out of boredom, and carry the pile to the kitchen table.
My books thud against the wood as they drop. The table shifts under the weight, one leg shorter than the others, the whole thing leaning toward the wall as if trying to escape.
I sink into the uneven chair, spine aching, and start working through the pile.
Math, mostly. Numbers that blur if I stare too long.
Time slips.
The light changes through the window, stretching across the table until it hits the edge of my paper. Sheets are scattered everywhere, my pen smudging across the margin.
I reach for my phone and fire off a text to Cassie.
Skylar: WTF is question 9 even asking? did she say we had to do all of it?
Cassie replies within seconds.
Cassie: Absolutely not the point right now.
Cassie: Are you staring at Mr tall, dark and angry?
Cassie: Tell me he doesn’t always walk around shirtless because that should be illegal.
I stare at the screen, thumb hovering.
Then I lock the phone and set the screen face down on the table.
Nope.
No fucking way am I touching that.
I let out a sigh and pick my phone back up. I unlock it again, thumb hesitating for half a second before I open the job listings.
I scroll slowly.
Barista.
Waitress.
Shelf stacker.
Anything with a pay check to keep me from being someone else’s responsibility.
I need my own money. My own space, my own way out.
Zane didn’t ask for this. And I don’t want to be another mess he has to clean up.
The door swings open, and Zane strolls in with that slow, loose-hipped walk that shouldn’t make my chest tight but it fucking does. Grease smudged on his jaw. T-shirt clinging to his shoulders like it’s part of his skin. Jeans riding low on his hips.
He doesn’t say shit as he walks to the table, and drops a crumpled brown bag beside my notebook.
He grabs two forks from the drawer.
I keep my head down. But every damn step, every shift in the air, pulls at me. And fuck, I hate being this fucking aware of him.
He comes back over and drops into the chair opposite mine and pulls two containers out of the bag.
Noodles. The greasy hot kind. The smell of soy and garlic hits hard.
He puts one container in front of me on top of my papers.
“Eat,” he mutters finally.
“You bringing me dinner now?” I mutter, phone still in my hand.
“Didn’t do it for you. I was just tired of hearing your stomach bitch louder than you do.”
I finally glance up.
His eyes are already on mine, his arm stretched out, holding a fork towards me. Mouth twitching like he’s enjoying himself way too much.
“You didn’t have to spend money on me.”
His gaze drops to my mouth before dragging slowly back up to my eyes.
“Relax. I didn’t pay.”
I hesitate, before putting my phone back down on the table.
“Guy at the shop owed me a favor. Don’t ask.”
“Legal favor?” My eyes narrow.
He shrugs with a grin slowly spreading across his mouth. “Define legal.”
Our fingers brush as I take the fork.
Heat jumps straight to my throat. I hate the way he doesn’t even have to try and I’m already short circuiting.
For a while, we eat in silence.
The quiet isn’t awkward. It never is with him.
My eyes flick up, and I catch him watching me.
Shit.
I shove a forkful of noodles into my mouth, chew too fast, and stare back down at my homework, pretending question six is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.
The silence stretches until I can feel it scrape against my skin.
“You finished that?” he asks, nodding toward the shitty old book written by some dead guy we are forced to read because it is a “classic”.
“Nah… Don’t have to. It’s not due till the end of the week.”
“Still, slacking I see.”
I arch a brow, lift my gaze slow. “Didn’t know you cared about my grades.”
“I don’t. Just didn’t picture you the type to leave things half done.” His mouth curves, lazy and smug. “Thought you’d be the kind who finishes what she starts.”
Heat coils low in my gut, hating that his words sound filthy even when they aren’t.
“Not everything’s worth finishing,” I say, the edge in my voice sharper than I intend.
“Guess that depends on what you’re starting,” he says, leaning back in the chair.
The air shifts.
Thick. Charged. Neither of us moves.
I force myself to look back at my notebook, even though the words blur on the page. My pulse doesn’t settle.
His eyes are still on me—I can feel them, tracing, testing, daring.
And fuck, I hate how much I want him to keep looking.
The noodles go cold in their containers, but neither of us cares.
I push mine around absently, swirling the soy-stained strands into a lazy spiral.
I glance up and catch him staring at me. Not in a weird way. Just… observing.
“What?” I mutter.
He shrugs again, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Nothing. You’ve got sauce on your chin.”
I swipe at it and glare at him when he grins.
“I want to show you something I found when I moved in,” he says, pushing his barely eaten noodles away, then he stands.
“Let me guess. This is the part where you tell me it isn’t sketchy, and I wind up in a true crime documentary?”
“It’s on the roof.”
I blink. “Yeah, no thanks. Last time we were on a roof together, I sucked your dick. I’m not doing that again.”
He freezes for a beat, head half turned as if he didn’t expect me to say that out loud.
“Noted,” he says, turning his gaze back to me. “Fucking disappointed… but no. That’s not what I want to show you.”
I stare at him.
He holds my gaze without flinching.
Goddamn.
Those fucking eyes.
The ones that see through every defense I pretend to have.
He waits. Calm and steady. Already so sure I’ll say yes.
I let out a sharp breath, shove my chair back, and snatch my jacket off the end of the bed.
“Fine. But if I fall and die, I’m haunting you.”
His mouth lifts at one corner, smug as sin. “Fair enough.”
His eyes drop to my chest, then trail down over my short skirt. Heat coils in the pit of my stomach. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he says. “I could use a ghost with legs like yours.”
“Jesus, you’re a pervert.”
He shrugs, no shame. “Never said I wasn’t.”
I shoot him a glare as I pass him and head for the door.
I don’t even know if we’re meant to take the stairs or go out the window or through some fucked-up secret passage he found, Narnia-style, behind a wall panel.
None of that matters. I can’t stay in that room with him staring at me the way he is.
The kind of stare that peels me open and destroys every wall I spent years learning how to build.
Because no matter how many times I swear I won’t fold, no matter how fucking hard I fight to keep my guard up, Zane always finds a way through.
Every single fucking time.
I move down the steps, the thud of my shoes echoing in the quiet workshop.
There’s that pull in my spine again that tells me he’s watching.
Halfway down, I stop and glance over my shoulder.
“Am I going the right way?”
His eyes drag up slow.
Not rushed. Not even pretending to hide the fact that he was staring at my ass.
“Were you—” I narrow my eyes. “Were you checking out my ass?”
Zane smirks. “If you’re gonna wear a skirt that short, you can’t be mad when someone appreciates the view.”
Heat prickles across my chest. I turn back, gripping the rail tighter.
“Are you always this cocky, or is this special performance just for me?”
“Sweetheart, you bring it out in me.”
I move down another step, like putting space between us might save me from the heat crawling up my spine.