Chapter Seventeen #4
He leans back against the bar. “And the assessment concluded.”
Raising my brow, I tilt my head at him. “So, what did you conclude?”
He looks at me from the corner of his eye. “That you looked thirsty.”
A quiet laugh slips out of me as I take the bottle from him, our fingers brushing for the briefest second. “Did you just make a joke?”
He scowls. “I don’t joke, Objection.”
“You’re really running with that nickname, huh?”
“It suits you.”
“It really doesn’t.”
He grins. “You’re just proving my point.”
I roll my eyes, take a sip of my drink, and neither of us seems in any hurry to move away, standing shoulder to shoulder while the dance floor carries on in front of us. He’s close enough that I catch the familiar scent of leather and cedar every time someone brushes past us.
And it still does ridiculous things to my heart.
“You okay?” he asks after a moment, his eyes following Marley and Nitro as they disappear into another slow turn across the dance floor.
He isn’t looking at me.
I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t want to. I think it’s because if he does, he might forget how to look anywhere else.
“She got everything,” I say, watching Marley laugh at something Nitro is whispering into her ear. “I’m ridiculously happy for her.”
A pause settles between us before he speaks again. “What about you?”
I look at him properly. The fairy lights above us, the noise of the people I love filling every corner of this room, Marley’s laugh carrying across the space.
The kind of safety that comes from being surrounded by brothers who, six days ago, proved exactly what they are capable of protecting.
I think about his hand on my knee on that highway, the way he pulled me deeper into the formation without a word, the fact that he put himself between me and the outside lane before I had even understood there was a threat to put himself between.
“I’m working on it,” I tell him.
He doesn’t answer straightaway.
He just looks at me.
Ghost has always been observant. It’s how his mind works. He notices loose threads, tiny inconsistencies, the details everybody else misses. Somewhere along the way I’d become one of those details, too, and I don’t think he’s stopped paying attention since.
“I know,” he says softly.
It’s only two words.
Somehow, they still manage to wrap themselves around my heart.
He stays close to me for the rest of the night without turning it into a thing.
It isn’t hovering.
It’s Ghost.
He drifts into whatever conversation I’m having without taking it over, appears beside me every time someone pulls me toward the dance floor or the bar, and somehow, without either of us acknowledging it, I always know exactly where he is.
By the time the music slows and people start breaking into smaller conversations, he’s standing close enough that our shoulders brush every time someone squeezes past.
I don’t move away.
Neither does he.
“I’m starting to think this isn’t accidental,” I murmur, keeping my eyes on the room even though every part of me is acutely aware of him beside me.
“What isn’t?”
“You.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ve been accused of worse.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Have you?”
“Mm…”
“For example?”
He turns his head, then finally looks at me. “You think too much.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You’ve spent the last three minutes pretending not to notice I’m standing here.”
Heat climbs into my cheeks. “I noticed.”
“Actually admitting something… progress. Objection.” Something in the way he says it makes my stomach tighten.
Someone brushes between us, carrying two drinks, nudging me backward a step.
Ghost follows without thinking.
Another couple drifts past, laughing, leaving me with nowhere else to go until my back meets the wall beside the bar.
He stops in front of me.
Not trapping me.
Just close.
Close enough I have to tilt my head to keep looking at him.
Close enough I can smell leather and cedar.
His hand comes up beside my head, resting against the wall as another guest slips behind him.
It’s practical.
It should feel practical.
It doesn’t.
The noise of the clubhouse fades into something distant.
His eyes search mine, quieter than I’ve ever seen them. Like he’s looking for permission he doesn’t quite know how to ask for. My heart is beating so hard I’m convinced he can hear it as goose bumps pebble across my skin.
“So,” I whisper.
“So.”
Neither of us moves.
I don’t know who’s leaning first.
Maybe it’s him.
Maybe it’s me.
Maybe it’s both of us giving up the same inch at the same time.
The space between us disappears until I can feel the warmth of his breath against my lips, and every instinct I have screams to close the distance.
Just kiss me.
His gaze flicks to my mouth, back to my eyes, then his jaw tightens.
For one suspended second I think he’s going to do it.
I know I want him to.
Then…
“Sage!” Piper’s voice barrels through the moment like a freight train. She appears beside us wearing the biggest grin I’ve ever seen, completely oblivious to the fact she may have just interrupted the single most important almost-kiss in recorded history.
“You have to come now,” she says, grabbing my sleeve. ‘Deek’s already had two pieces of cake, and I refuse to let him beat me to a third,’ she signs the last part.
Ghost closes his eyes for the briefest fraction of a second—it’s so quick I almost miss it.
When he opens them again, the moment has been carefully folded away behind that familiar control.
He drops his hand from the wall and takes one step back.
“Go,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
I should be disappointed.
Instead, as I look at him one last time, bringing my hand up to his chest and patting it twice before Piper drags me toward the cake table, all I can think is… that wasn’t a chance we lost. It was a promise. One we were both going to come back for.
Later, in the quiet of the bathroom, my phone flashes—Unknown Number—buzzing the counter, and my stomach tightens in the familiar way it does now.
I set the phone face down and press my palms flat against the cool countertop until my breathing settles.
I think about Ghost pulling two dead men’s pockets open on the side of a desert highway, and I think about what he would do if he knew.
I put the phone away without reading the text. This can wait until tomorrow. I walk back out into the noise and the light, to find Marley on the dance floor. She pulls me into her arms and spins me around like we are eighteen and reckless in a different way than the one that keeps finding me now.
I let myself have this.
I let myself have all of it.
The music, the laughter, and the people I love gathered in one warm, glowing room, because tonight is Marley’s night, and it deserves to be celebrated.
Unknown numbers, cryptic messages, and my chaotic life can go back to normal programming tomorrow.