CHAPTER 20
OPHELIA
The diner Matty steered me into smelled like frying oil, pancake syrup, and coffee so strong it could probably polish a floor. Neon signs buzzed above a row of cracked vinyl booths, and the floor tiles were the kind of yellow-white that promised decades of stories under their scuffs.
If I’d been alone, I would’ve turned around and walked out. Noise pressed against me from every angle…forks scraping plates, ice rattling in glasses, laughter pinging off chrome-edged counters. I could feel my lungs tightening, my brain already negotiating exit strategies.
But then Matty’s hand tightened around mine, and all the anxiety flapping around inside me…it settled. “C’mon, pretty baby,” he murmured, tugging me toward the corner booth.
Calling it a booth was generous. It was more like a small, padded amphitheater, somehow big enough to fit the seven of us. Natalie slid in first, waving her phone around and talking so fast it took me a second to realize she was mid-rant about pancakes.
Casey followed, sliding in beside her, while Parker, who had met up with us on the walk over, squeezed in next to her.
Jace and Riley took the opposite side, Riley’s head resting against his shoulder as he waved a fork through the air, animatedly reenacting how he’d gotten himself banned from Applebee’s.
Matty slid in beside me, taking up way too much space and still managing to make me feel like there was nowhere safer in the world to be. His thigh brushed mine under the table, warm and solid, and I could smell soap and skin and the faint scent of salt on his neck when he leaned close.
He pressed a quick kiss to my temple before anyone noticed. “You okay?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if that was true. My heart was already racing, but not from panic this time. From them. From this. From the realization that I was sitting at the same table as the people who filled Matty’s world.
“FiFi!” Natalie announced suddenly, pointing at me with her fork like she’d just spotted a celebrity. “You have to tell me more about being the tiger!”
Every head turned.
Matty blinked. “What did you just call her?”
Natalie looked positively delighted. “FiFi. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jace echoed with a grin, stealing Natalie’s syrup packet.
Natalie pointed her fork at him in warning before turning back to Matty. “Don’t give me that look. She’s part of the No Drama Llamas now. You can’t sit at this table without a nickname. It’s, like, the first commandment.”
Matty stared, his expression somewhere between disbelief and resignation. “The first what?”
“The first commandment, Adler,” Natalie said with a straight face. “Commandment one: Thou shalt have a nickname. Commandment two: Thou shalt eat a pancake. She’s fulfilling the prophecy.”
“I don’t think everyone in the group has a nickname,” said Parker, disengaging himself from staring at Casey long enough to join the conversation.
“Sorry, but you’re wrong, Davis,” Natalie said. “We all do.”
“It’s true,” said Jace. “And Riley has, like, twenty.”
“I have twenty?” Riley asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jace hooked an arm along the back of the booth behind her and leaned in, his eyes bright with mischief.
“Riley-girl,” he said instantly, as if no one had asked a question so easy since what’s two plus two.
“Riley-bean. Ri-baby. Ri-ri. Riles. Rye Bread. Rye Whiskey. Ri-licious. Ri-nator. Riley-from-the-Block. Riley-won’t-admit-she-snores—”
“I don’t snore,” Riley said, shoving an elbow into his ribs.
“She doesn’t,” he agreed without missing a beat, then added in a stage whisper, “She sings quietly through her nose. It’s adorable.”
Riley flattened her palm against her face. “I regret asking.”
“Want me to keep going?” Jace offered, delighted. “Because I’ve got at least ten more locked and loaded. Ri-gasm. Ri-pocalypse. Ri—”
“Stop,” she hissed, turning so red I thought steam might whistle out of her ears.
“Yeah, Jace, quit before you get hit with a Ri-straining order,” Parker drawled.
I stiffened at that word, but no one noticed. They were too busy gaping at Parker.
“Did he just make a joke?” Jace asked, sounding dumbfounded.
“I take it back,” Parker groaned, looking embarrassed.
Jace grinned. “Nope. I’m not forgetting this. I feel like a proud dad. I’m just so happy right now.”
Parker scoffed, but there was a slight blush to his cheeks.
He pressed a kiss to the side of Casey’s head, and she looked up at him like he hung the moon.
I didn’t blame her for that. With his dark brown hair, eyes an impossible shade of blue, and that easy, confident grin, he looked like he could talk the sun into rising early.
A waitress with a pen tucked behind her ear walked up to the table, her gray hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun and laugh lines framing her eyes.
“You guys again,” she said, shaking her head with a smile. “Didn’t I just see you in here the other night? And the night before that…”
Jace grinned up at her, all charm and dimples. “What can I say, Mildred? Your cheese fries are my love language.”
She snorted, trying, and failing, to hide the blush that crept into her cheeks. “Flattery again, huh? You used that line last week.”
“Only because it worked,” Jace said, leaning back with a cocky smirk.
Her mouth twitched despite herself. “Flattery gets you refills, sweetheart, not free food.”
“Noted,” he said, winking. “But I’m still gonna try.”
She rolled her eyes, smiling now. “Alright, what’s everyone having?”
“Five orders of cheese fries,” Jace announced, and Riley’s eyes widened. “And a glass of milk. Oh! And a corn dog!”
Matty turned toward him, his expression horrified. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a growing boy,” Jace said, unfazed. “And I didn’t ask for milk with ice; nothing to be afraid of, Matty-kins.”
Milk with ice? Only serial killers did that. I glanced up at Matty, thinking I’d found another inside joke I didn’t know about, and my skin itched to find out more.
“I’ll have a burger,” Riley said before glancing at Jace. “And I want some of those cheese fries.”
“You’re lucky you’re so pretty and perfect and wonderful, Ri-licious. Sharing cheese fries is a big deal.”
Natalie pretended like she was choking.
Matty leaned over. “You’re pretty and perfect and wonderful, too,” he whispered to me.
I almost melted into the seat.
“Chicken wrap,” Casey told the server politely.
Parker grinned. “And cheese fries. You need more sustenance than that.”
“Big word, Davis. Another thing I’m proud of you about,” Jace announced.
“I’ll have a burger and cheese fries,” Parker said, ignoring Jace.
“Strawberry lemonade and pancakes,” Natalie said. “But hold the strawberry and add extra lemons.”
Mildred blinked at her. “So…a regular lemonade?”
“Don’t stifle her art,” Jace whispered solemnly.
I ordered chicken fingers, and Matty glanced up when it was his turn. “Double bacon burger with—”
“Extra bacon and fry sauce,” I finished without thinking.
He looked at me curiously, like he was trying to figure out how I knew that. Heat crawled up my neck.
Natalie leaned forward before I could try to explain myself, clapping her hands once as Mildred walked away. “Okay! Now that we’ve all confessed our deep emotional truths through food orders, tell us everything.”
It took a second to process her words because I was still freaking out about what I’d just done. Matty’s gaze was digging into the side of my head, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. “Everything?”
“Everything, everything,” she confirmed. “Favorite color. Least favorite condiment. Hobbies. Aspirations. Your mysterious aura. Why you look like a FiFi. What you like to do when—”
“Don’t forget she’s mine,” Matty interrupted, a serious look on his face. “You’re going to find out how perfect she is with all these questions. And I don’t want you to forget that.”
“Possessive much?” Natalie murmured, though the corners of her mouth tilted up.
“It’s a No Drama Llama thing,” Jace commented helpfully, tapping on the bandaged tattoo on his arm that Matty had told me about.
The banter skittered across my skin like champagne bubbles, but it was hard to concentrate. Matty was going to kill me if he kept saying all these sweet things.
But maybe that meant he’d forgotten about my bacon and fry sauce mistake.
Jace drummed his fingers on the table, eyes gleaming with the kind of warning that meant nothing good. “Serious question,” he announced. “Do you guys know the difference between ooh and ahh?”
Riley groaned. “No.”
Parker pinched the bridge of his nose like he felt a migraine approaching. “Please don’t.”
Jace’s grin sharpened. “About three inches.”
Everyone groaned almost in unison.
“Or in Matty’s case, about two inches,” Jace added as an afterthought.
Matty’s snarl was immediate, his cheeks going red as he cut a glare across the table and then glanced down at me, a little panic in his gaze. “That wasn’t a scientific experiment. The results weren’t accurate. And it was only a quarter of an inch.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” I said, amused. “But if we’re talking about dicks, I think yours is perfect.”
The table went dead silent.
Even Jace blinked.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, wanting to crawl under the table.
And then—chaos. Natalie folded over her forearms, wheezing with laughter. Riley coughed and made a choking sound. Parker’s shoulders were shaking. Even Jace lost it, laughing so hard he knocked into the ketchup bottle.
Matty just stared for a second, then his mouth curved into the brightest smile I’d ever seen. His beam that followed could’ve powered the whole diner.
I’d embarrass myself every day if it made him look like that.
Mildred returned with drinks. Natalie took an extravagant slurp of her very regular lemonade and declared it life-changing. Jace tried to steal my water, and Matty slapped his hand away without looking.
“Mildred, darling. Why did Cinderella get kicked off the football team?”
“No—” Riley started, too late.
“Because she kept running away from the ball,” Jace finished, looking insufferably pleased with himself.
Mildred chuckled, shaking her head as she walked away, and Parker glared at Jace as if he could banish him from the planet by thought alone.
“I have one more,” Jace said, undeterred. “It’s a new one. What’s the difference between a tire and three-hundred and sixty-five used condoms?”
“Jace,” Matty warned, fighting a grin.
“One’s a Goodyear,” Jace beamed. “The other’s a great year.”
Everyone was still laughing as the plates hit the table—a greasy, glorious parade of burgers, fries, pancakes, and things that probably violated a few FDA guidelines. Natalie kept peppering me with questions between bites, and I was finally starting to relax.
A shadow fell across the table, and Natalie stopped mid-sentence.
I looked up, expecting Mildred back with refills…and I immediately understood why everyone had gone still.
A girl stood at the end of the booth.
She was pale, almost translucent under the diner’s fluorescent lights, with stringy brown hair that hung flat around her face and wide-set, haunting eyes. She stared at us silently, and I realized…she wasn’t blinking.
“Emma,” Riley greeted, visibly forcing a polite smile. “Hi.”
Emma’s head tilted a fraction. “My roommate moved out,” she said in a voice too calm to be casual. “If you ever want to move back in, Riley. She didn’t like me watching her sleep.”
The entire table froze.
Jace’s arm clamped tighter around Riley, pulling her flush against him. He slid her over his lap until she was seated on his other side, farther away from Emma. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s a really nice offer. But she’s going to have to pass.”
Emma didn’t acknowledge him. Her gaze drifted to Matty…and somehow she still hadn’t blinked.
I had the urge to throw myself in front of him so she couldn’t stare at his face. He was mine.
“I had a beautiful dream about us, Matthew,” she said sweetly.
Matty’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Oh…um, that’s nice?” he said nervously.
Her lips curved in a delicate smile. “We were getting married.”
I resisted the urge to launch myself at her.
“Oh,” he said weakly.
“In our graves,” she added.
The silence was absolute. Even the buzz of the diner seemed to pause.
Natalie blinked first, sitting up straighter with a too-bright grin. “Cool! Love a theme wedding. Can’t wait to see the invitations.”
Jace coughed into his napkin to cover a snort. Parker buried his face in his hands.
Emma just smiled again…still not blinking. “Sweet dreams.”
When she finally turned and walked out, the whole table seemed to exhale at once.
Jace leaned back, eyes wide. “Well,” he said. “That’s one way to kill a vibe.”
I blinked at him, still trying to process what had just happened. “Who…who was that?”
Riley groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. “My old roommate.”
“And one of Matty’s stalkers,” Jace added helpfully, picking up his fry again like we hadn’t just witnessed something out of a horror movie. “He’s got a whole collection for some reason—though, if we’re being honest, I’m obviously more stalk-worthy.”
Matty didn’t miss a beat. “You want me to remind you about Ms. Three Nipple?”
Jace froze mid-bite, color draining from his face. “Point taken.”
The others laughed, the tension easing back into something familiar and warm, but I couldn’t join in. My throat felt tight, my hands suddenly cold against my lap.
Stalker.
The word echoed in my head like a bell tolling too loud.
Because it didn’t take much—one slip, one overheard comment—for everything I’d tried to bury to surface. For them to look at me and see her.
I stared down at the half-eaten fries in front of me, then lifted my gaze just enough to see them, Natalie still grinning, Jace shoving Riley’s shoulder playfully, Parker trying not to smile, Matty watching me with quiet curiosity.
I didn’t want to lose this. Any of it.
So I smiled, too, pretending my heart wasn’t pounding like it wanted to escape.