Chapter 8
Eight
Sharp edges dulled over time. Days turned into weeks, and eventually, being around the gang felt normal again—like I hadn’t disappeared. Like I hadn’t shattered.
I pulled in a breath, grabbed the too-large watermelon from the passenger seat, and set it on my lap as I hoisted myself out of my BMW.
Cars lined both sides of the street, confirming what Katie had already warned me about—this wasn’t just our usual crew tonight. Jake’s old college friends were in town. Great.
They were nice enough, but it was always the same story: too many beers, too much nudging, someone awkwardly asking for my number. I wasn’t in the mood. I had two clients hounding me for finished websites—both of whom had been circling like sharks all week—but I’d promised I’d show.
The watermelon was heavier than I remembered. Awkward, slick, impossible to grip as I fumbled with the front gate.
I regretted not getting a smaller one. But the guy at the store insisted this was the best—and for once, I wanted to win this ridiculous contest with John. Petty? Absolutely. But it was tradition.
Laughter drifted from the backyard, and the scent of grilled meat wrapped around me like a welcome mat. My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day.
I adjusted the watermelon again, forearms burning, and headed straight for the kitchen—just as Jake walked in from the yard, an apron around his neck, a beer in one hand, and—
Dean.
My heart stuttered.
The watermelon slipped straight through my fingers.
It hit the tile with a crack, and pink flesh exploded like a crime scene. I froze, breath locked in my throat, my gaze pinned to Dean as though I were seeing a ghost.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
He stood across the room—shirtless, tan, his hair damp from a swim—and suddenly breathing began to feel like a full-time job.
Jake crouched immediately, muttering something as he reached for paper towels. His focus, thankfully, was on the floor.
Dean and I? We had no such distraction. We just stared, unmoving. The air between us thickened—electric, silent in a way that caused goosebumps to cover my skin.
What are you doing here? I mouthed across the room to him.
Jake looked up, oblivious. “Hey, can you grab me a bowl?”
My body finally caught up to the moment. I nodded, walked stiffly to the counter, and grabbed a mixing bowl, pretending the whole time that my hands weren’t shaking.
To my dismay, Dean crouched beside us—still shirtless, still infuriatingly relaxed in a way that gave me butterflies.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he murmured.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. All I could do was silently pray that Jake wouldn’t notice the tension vibrating between us.
I wasn’t that lucky.
Jake glanced between us, squinting as he tossed a chunk of watermelon into the bowl. “Wait—do you guys know each other?”
Dean stood, wiping his hands on his shorts. But he didn’t answer. He looked at me instead, passing the ball back into my court.
Heat crept up my neck. I turned to the counter, grabbed a cloth, and focused on wiping invisible juice from my hands. “I—um…”
“We met at work,” Dean said smoothly, stepping in as if lying came second nature to him. His tone was calm. Steady. Lethally convincing.
Relief curled in my gut. Then dread.
“Work?” Jake frowned.
“She consulted on a case,” Dean added. “Web design stuff.”
Quick and smart. Too smart.
But then Jake looked at me again. “Didn’t know you were doing consulting now, Em.”
I offered a quick shrug, then quickly turned back to the watermelon and tossed the remains into the trash. “Guess I’m out of the competition this year, darn.”
Jake chuckled, clearly catching on to my deliberate change in subject.
“Give me that,” he said, taking the trash bag from my hands with a wink. “Pretty sure I’ve got another melon in the garage.”
Dean turned to follow him, but I grabbed the edge of his shorts. “We need to talk,” I hissed.
Before he could answer, I dragged him through the living room, down the hallway, and into the bathroom, where I shut the door and locked it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped.
He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a smirk teasing the corners of his mouth. “I know Jake. We went to law school together.”
Then—because apparently that wasn’t enough—he stepped closer, just as infuriatingly confident in board shorts as he’d been in a three-piece suit. “How do you know Jake?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
He lifted a brow. “Just a question. Like the one you just asked me.”
I exhaled. Hard. “You’re telling me that out of all the people in this city, you happen to be friends with Jake?”
He grinned. “Small world, isn’t it?”
I shifted, my body buzzing as if I’d touched a live wire. “Did you follow me? Did you know I’d be here?”
“No,” he said, cool as ever. “I didn’t.”
“Then how the hell did you find me?”
His smile softened. The moment shifted—just a little. “Fate, I guess.”
It caught me off guard. The sincerity. The ease. For a split second, something in my chest tightened—I dropped my gaze, knowing I would lose myself in his chocolate-colored eyes if I didn’t.
I’d met him only once. But he’d been in my head for weeks. In dreams I hadn’t meant to have. Ones I would never admit to.
“They don’t know,” he said after a beat, moving closer, until he practically sat on the counter beside me. “Do they?”
I didn’t answer.
“They don’t know what you do…” His tone wasn’t judgmental. Just… puzzled. As if he couldn’t make the pieces fit.
Heat climbed up my chest, burning hot beneath my collarbone. “That’s none of your business, now is it?” The words came out sharper than I meant them to—bitter and biting, laced with the edge I’d relied on more times than I cared to admit. The edge that kept people from getting too close.
His expression hardened. “Why keep the secret?”
I turned toward the sink. “What are you trying to prove?”
“Nothing,” he said. “But if they’re your friends…”
I flipped on the faucet, scrubbing my hands as though to wash away something invisible. Embarrassment, shame, guilt, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
But the words rang hollow. I could hear it in my own voice.
It hadn’t started as a secret. But somewhere along the way, it became one.
I wasn’t even sure when or how—more of a withholding of truth than a lie, something I’d always done.
Like muscle memory. Keep things close. Protect the soft parts of myself, because this world was designed to crush people like me.
Deep down I knew my friends weren’t like that, but this job came with assumptions I didn’t have the energy to explain away.
I offered companionship—no strings, no expectations, nothing physical. Just time. The kind most people were starved for. The fact that it came with a paycheck was the part that raised eyebrows.
Yet…I was never ashamed of it.
Not really.
I knew they’d worry. Especially Jake and John.
They’d always been overprotective to the point of absurdity, even when they thought it was just a harmless date.
John still had my location shared on his phone “for emergencies,” which apparently included times when I was running ten minutes late to brunch.
And Jake once showed up at a restaurant uninvited while I was on a date, claiming he “just happened to be in the neighborhood,” then sat two tables away pretending to read a menu for forty-five minutes.
It was infuriating. Endearing. And part of me loved them for it… but there was a fine line between being cared for and being caged.
Then time passed.
Too much time passed for me to just come out and tell them the truth. Every day that I didn’t, the lie grew teeth.
I grabbed the towel from the counter, drying my hands a little too hard before turning back to Dean—heart pounding, jaw tight—already knowing exactly what I had to do to get out of this mess.
“I’ll go to Pine Ridge with you. Just don’t say a word.”
His gaze dipped briefly to the floor, and he chuckled. There was a beat—long enough to make my pulse skip—but when he looked up again, something had shifted behind his eyes.
“I’m not going to blackmail you, Emily.”
My name from his mouth felt strangely intimate.
I crossed my arms around my waist, ignoring the tightness in my chest. “I prefer the term mutually beneficial agreement.”
He stepped towards me, as though needing to say something that no one else could hear.
“Fine,” he whispered, and that’s when I realized how alone we really were. Just him and me. Locked in this tiny space that was closing in by the second.
I blinked, needing to recover, searching my mind for what we were just talking about. I shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts. “So you agree?” I asked, almost out of breath. “You won’t say anything?”
He was silent for a beat. His eyes steady on mine, as though searching. “I won’t say anything,” he promised.
“Give me your phone,” I said, eager to get back to the party before anyone noticed we were gone.
“Why?”
“Because we’ll need to talk. And we can’t exactly stay locked in this bathroom all night, now can we?”
He grinned, like the idea didn’t sound half bad. Still, he reached into his pocket and handed it over.
I typed in my number, but when I got to the last digit—I froze.
It was already there.
Vivienne.
A strange pressure tightened in my chest, and I looked up at him. “Right,” I said quietly. “You already have it.”
“I do,” he murmured.
I handed the phone back, suddenly too warm, too aware of how he made me feel, too aware of everything. “Good,” I muttered, reaching for the door with an intense need to put space between us.
But then his voice stopped me. Low. Almost casual. “Em?”
I hesitated at the door, hand on the nob before turning around to face him again, “Yes?”
“For the record,” he paused, and his eyes bore into mine with an intensity that made my stomach dip, “I wouldn’t have ratted you out to your friends.”