Chapter Eleven
Molly
The accounting exam wrings me out like a wet rag.
It is a test that starts out merely dismal and ends up feeling like weaponized math, designed to leave me in shreds by the last page.
When I finally step out into the late afternoon, the sky over the Ironwood Falls Community College campus is a sheet of gray steel, and I’m not even sure it’s technically brighter outside than inside.
The cold air slaps my cheeks. I suck it in, lungs raw, and I taste the cigarettes of the two girls huddled under the eaves of the entrance, along with a distant note of gas station coffee.
For a second I just stand there, trying to get my bearings.
There’s a numbness in my brain that has nothing to do with the weather, but more with the raw, sandpaper feeling of having to remember every damn thing you’re supposed to know just long enough to regurgitate it — then watching it all leak out of your ears the moment the exam is over.
And then I see him.
Evan Wilder is leaning against his basic, forgettable beige sedan like he belongs here, hands in his pockets, calm as a man who doesn’t know what it feels like to sprint through life on caffeine and stubbornness. He’s watching the doors like he’s been waiting for me to walk out this whole time.
Which is stupid.
Because he said he would.
My first reaction isn’t relief. It’s irritation because he kept his word, and men who keep their word are harder to shut down. They keep doing things like not disappointing you, making you believe them, trust them, respect them, until they get close enough to really hurt you.
What a dependable asshole.
I cinch my backpack a notch tighter, square my shoulders, and walk toward him at a pace just short of a challenge. I watch him watching me: the way his posture shifts, a small lift in his chin, a barely there smile that isn’t quite smug but definitely isn’t sorry.
“There she is,” he says, as if he hasn’t just been killing time for two hours.
I stop, let the silence hang for a second, just long enough to see what he’ll do.
“You’re still here,” I say, because it’s true and because I need to state the obvious before I can even process the weird, unfamiliar territory of being looked at like I matter.
He grins, half-lopsided. “Told you I would be.”
“You didn’t have to wait,” I say, and immediately want to take it back, because it sounds like I’m telling him to go away, when the real problem is that I don’t want him to.
His eyes flick over my face. Not in a way that makes me feel hunted — more like he’s checking for cracks. “How’d it go?”
“I don’t know.” I toss the words like weapons. “It’s done.”
“That’s a win.” He pushes off the car. “You look like you fought a demon in there.”
“I did.” I head for the passenger door, because standing here with him looking at me like that is not good for my blood pressure. “The demon was named Accounting, and it tried to eat my soul.”
He pulls his hands out of his pockets and gestures to the car. “Well, if you want, you can go home and drink yourself into a spreadsheet coma. Or…” he hesitates, and it’s almost imperceptible, a hitch in his practiced calm, “we could grab a bite. On me. I owe you for… something. I’m sure I do.”
I should say no. I should tell him I have plans, or homework, or a cat to rescue from a burning building.
But my legs feel like the inside of a pinball machine, jittery and unpredictable, and the idea of sitting alone in my apartment with nothing but the echo of my failure is so bleak it makes my teeth hurt.
I glance around as if some other option will materialize. The smokers are gone, the campus is emptying, and the gray sky just keeps pressing down. I sigh.
“Fine,” I say. “But only because I’m starving and you look like you might actually be able to afford a sandwich.”
He bows, mock-formal. “Your carriage awaits, madam.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t hate the way he holds the passenger door open for me. I get in, slam it maybe a little too hard, and immediately regret it because he is offering to buy me a sandwich, and I like sandwiches.
Inside, the car smells like clean soap and a hint of pine. There’s a bottle of hand sanitizer in the console, a pack of gum in the cup holder, and the dashboard free of dust — which shouldn’t matter, but somehow does.
Evan climbs in and starts the car. The heater kicks on with a low hum.
He pulls out of the parking lot and merges onto the road like this is just another afternoon. Like my heart isn’t still racing from the exam and from the fact that I’m sitting in this man’s passenger seat again.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I cross my arms, then uncross them.
I pick at the edge of my sleeve. My head is still in the exam, somewhere between the sixth and seventh essay question, but now it’s haunted by the smell of his aftershave and the easy way he keeps his eyes on the road like he has nowhere else to be.
He doesn’t talk at first, and I’m grateful, but then he sneaks a glance my way and says, “You always walk out of your exams looking like you survived a war?”
I glare. “You have no idea.”
He grins. “I bet you did better than you think.”
I snort. “You don’t know my life.”
He shrugs. “No, but I know you,” he says, and it’s the kind of line that should make my skin crawl, except it sounds like a compliment, or at least an intention, and I don’t know how to sidestep it without admitting how much I want him to be right.
I turn to the window, letting the town spool by in a blur of chain coffee shops, strip malls, and single-story houses, including a couple with plastic reindeer still crumpling on their lawns even though it’s way out of season.
We make a couple of turns, then he pulls onto a side street I vaguely recognize.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He doesn’t look away from the road. “Somewhere you can eat with your hands and not feel judged.”
Something about how easily he says it overrides my hunger and the post-test fog that’s wrapped around my brain. I shift in my seat and look at him out of the corner of my eye.
“I don’t do… this,” I say, and I hate how my voice goes flatter. Defensive. “I don’t do dates.”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t grin like he won. Just nods once, as if he’s taking me seriously.
“Okay,” he says. “Not a date.”
My jaw pops as I clench it. “Then what is it?” I ask, just to make him admit he’s lying.
“A reward.” He shrugs. “You survived. I’m offering a single meal in a public place with bright lights and witnesses. No pressure. No expectations.”
“That sounds like a hostage negotiation.”
His laugh is quiet. “I’m being strategic.”
I watch him for a beat. He keeps his eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel. No push. No guilt. No pouting.
It’s… disarming.
Which is suspicious, too.
I sigh through my nose. “Fine. One hour.”
Evan’s smile turns softer. “Fine. One hour.”
He pulls into a small bar that looks more like a neighborhood watering hole than anything fancy — a squat, brick building, a neon sign, a couple of cars out front.
The sign’s illegible, except for the words “Logger’s” and some Paul Bunyan-like mascot.
It’s a place where nobody cares who you are as long as you pay your tab.
We duck into the bar, and the first thing that smacks me is the heat, like opening a dryer right as it finishes its cycle.
Then the scent — fried mozzarella sticks, cheap beer, and something under it all that’s like freshly baked pie.
The bar itself is all battered wood, old neon beer signs, and a wall-mounted TV showing sports highlights.
The few people here glance up, clock us with the lazy evaluation of locals, then pivot right back to their fries or screens.
We could be ghosts. Or royalty. Or anything in between.
Evan picks a booth in the back, away from the center but still visible.
He slides in across from me. The waitress comes over, all eyeliner and efficient politeness.
Evan orders a whiskey, neat, because of course he does.
I go with whatever beer is on tap because it’s cheap and doesn’t require me to make a personality decision.
She leaves, and the silence between us expands, not awkward, just dense with things I refuse to name.
When the drinks arrive, Evan picks up his glass and raises it just high enough for me to notice. “To surviving demons,” he says, as if it’s an inside joke only we share.
I clink my bottle against his, careful not to spill. “To never doing that again,” I reply, voice rougher than I want. “Except probably twenty more times until I get my damn degree.”
He takes a sip, watching me over the rim. “You look like you want to bite someone.”
“I might,” I say. “Depends on how the grading goes.”
Evan smiles. “You always this intense?”
I give him a dead stare. “You always this nosy?”
“No,” he says easily. “Usually I’m worse.”
That gets a reluctant huff out of me — almost a laugh — and I hate that he notices.
I bite back a smile, not because it’s funny, but because it’s almost impressive, how he can be so blatantly himself despite everything I’m doing to him. I know I’m not making this easy, I know I’m pushing him away — because I have to.
“So,” he says, pivoting, “Business degree. That’s the endgame? Why?”
I shrug, keeping it casual, keeping it armored. “Because I don’t want to be behind a bar forever.”
“That’s not a why,” he says. “There’s a lot of things you could do to get out from behind a bar that don’t involve getting a business degree.”
I take a long pull of beer. The bitterness steadies me. “Because I’m tired of being stuck.”
Evan’s gaze holds mine, quiet and focused, as if he understands that word in a way I didn’t expect.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “I get that.”
Something tightens behind my ribs, and I’m tempted to talk more.
To tell him I’m not just doing this for me, but for everyone in my family in the Twisted Devils.
That having a degree isn’t just good for me, but means I’ll be able to do more for them, too.
Help them grow just as much as I grow. But I look away first.
I don’t like being seen.
To cover it, I say, “So what’s your deal, Wilder? You always hang around college parking lots waiting for women to finish tests?”
His grin flashes. “Only the scary ones.”
“Scary?”
“You are,” he says, like it’s a compliment. “You look like you could stab someone with a pencil and not lose sleep.”
I snort despite myself. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” He tips his head. “You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’ve been disappointed by the world enough times that you started carrying your own knife.”
I go still. For a second, the old warning in my head rises — too perceptive, too smooth, too close. Men who see too much are dangerous. I set my beer down carefully, watching the foam settle a little. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Evan’s smile fades into something calmer. “You’re right. I don’t.” He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t pry. Just lets the boundary exist without making me feel crazy for drawing it. “I’m not trying to get in your head,” he says. “I just like talking to you.”
That should make me run.
Instead, it makes my stomach flip like I’m eighteen again and stupid and standing too close to a boy who feels like temptation. A boy who respects the lines I draw in the sand, and by doing so, makes me want to jump right the fuck over them and into his arms.
I swallow hard and glance at the clock behind him.
Forty minutes left.
Good. I can do forty.
I can do one drink, one order of cheesy fries, and probably a dozen more moments where I want to wipe that respectful smile off his face by kissing him.
That’s when it hits me, cold and clear.
I’m in trouble.
Not because he’s pushy.
Not because he’s a player.
Because he’s the opposite, and he makes me forget to be guarded.
As he watches me like I’m worth the effort, I catch myself thinking the most dangerous thought of all: what would it feel like to say yes to him again?