Chapter Seven
Hailey
“You’re glowing.” Sloane says this from my bathroom doorway, wine glass in hand, watching me attempt to apply eyeliner without
stabbing myself in the cornea. Chloe is sprawled across my bed, scrolling through her phone while simultaneously offering
unsolicited fashion advice.
“I’m not glowing. I’m sweating.”
“You’re definitely glowing,” Chloe confirms without looking up. “It’s disgusting, actually. Very rom-com heroine energy.”
I set down the eyeliner and examine myself in the mirror. The black dress hugs my waist and hits just above the knee. The
neckline does its job without trying too hard. I touch the silver earrings Knox bought me at the market last night, still
getting used to the unfamiliar weight of them.
“It’s just dinner.”
“It’s your second date in two days.” Sloane sips her wine. “That’s not ‘just dinner.’ That’s trajectory.”
“Trajectory toward what?”
“Toward you finally getting laid,” Chloe supplies helpfully. “Which, let’s be honest, is long overdue.”
I grab a lipstick and pretend to be very focused on application. “My sex life is not up for discussion.”
“What sex life?” Chloe looks up, grinning. “Hails, I’ve known you for over two years. You haven’t dated anyone. Not a single
person. Not even a bad Tinder match for entertainment purposes.”
“Maybe I’m selective.”
“Maybe you’re hiding.”
I watch my reflection in the mirror, keeping it carefully neutral even as something twists inside. Chloe doesn’t know how
close to the mark she’s hit.
“Okay, that came out harsher than I meant,” she says quickly, sitting up. “I just mean . . . you never talk about your past.
Like, at all. Not even embarrassing ex-boyfriend stories. Everyone has embarrassing ex-boyfriend stories.”
Sloane shoots her a look. “Chloe.”
“What? I’m just saying. We’re her friends. We tell her everything. But Hailey’s got this whole mysterious backstory thing
going on, and now suddenly she’s dating Knox Bishop, and I feel like we’re missing important context.”
I cap the lipstick and turn around, leaning against the bathroom counter. They’re both watching me now, Sloane with gentle
concern and Chloe with naked curiosity. I could deflect. I’m good at deflecting, have had years of practice building walls
and changing subjects and steering conversations away from anything that matters. But these are my friends. Real friends,
maybe the first ones I’ve had in a long time. And maybe I’m tired of carrying this alone.
“His name was Liam Calloway.”
Chloe goes very still. Sloane sets down her wine.
“We were together for three years, and I loved him so much it scared me sometimes.” I hear my own voice like it belongs to
someone else, distant and too careful. “He was charming and brilliant and when he looked at me, I felt like I was the most
interesting person in any room. Like nothing else existed except the two of us and whatever trouble we were about to get in
to.”
“What happened?” Sloane asks softly.
I look at the ceiling, at the cracks in the old plaster, at anything that isn’t their faces.
“I wanted more. He didn’t. I wanted a future, a real one, something solid and permanent.
And he wanted to keep living like tomorrow was optional, like making plans meant giving something up.
” My shoulders rise and fall. “So I walked away. Five years ago. Haven’t dated anyone since. ”
No one says a word. I can practically hear them deciding how to respond.
“Five years,” Chloe repeats. “Hailey, that’s . . .”
“A long time to be alone. I know.” I meet their eyes. “But when you love someone that completely, when you pour yourself into
another person and they can’t give you what you need . . . it takes a while to want to try again. You start to wonder if maybe
the problem was you. If you wanted too much, asked for too much. If you’re just not built for the kind of love that actually
lasts.”
Sloane crosses to me and pulls me into a hug that I didn’t realize I needed. She smells like expensive perfume and friendship,
and I let myself lean into it for a moment before the vulnerability gets to be too much.
“Knox is different,” she says against my hair. “I can tell.”
“He is.” I pull back, surprised to find I’m smiling. “That’s what terrifies me.”
“Good terror or bad terror?” Chloe asks.
“I haven’t decided yet.” I check my reflection one more time, smoothing down a strand of hair that doesn’t need smoothing.
“He looks at me like I’m something worth figuring out. Like I’m a puzzle he actually wants to solve, not just a problem to
fix or a girl to chase until he gets bored. Nobody’s looked at me like that in a long time.”
“Not even Liam?”
I pause, really considering the question. “Liam looked at me like I was a partner in crime. Someone to run with, to scheme
with, to burn bright with until we both flamed out.” I think about last night, Knox’s face when he handed me the velvet pouch,
how nervous he’d seemed despite all that military composure. “Knox looks at me like he wants to stay.”
Chloe makes a sound that might be a squeal, quickly suppressed. “Okay, I take back every joke I made about your sex life. This is disgustingly romantic and I’m here for it.”
“Nothing’s happened yet.”
“Hailey.” Sloane gives me a knowing look. “I heard about what happened in Washington Square Park.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. “How did you—”
“Knox told Cole. Cole told me.” She smirks. “Apparently Knox showed up to work this morning looking like he hadn’t slept and
couldn’t stop smiling. Cole said it was unsettling.”
“We just kissed.”
“You ‘just kissed’ for how long?”
I don’t answer.
“Hailey.” Chloe’s voice drops into her interrogation register. “Spill. Now. You’ve given us nothing for years. No dating stories,
no hook-up confessions, nothing. You owe us this.”
“She’s right,” Sloane adds. “Consider it payment for all the times we’ve overshared about our love lives.”
I think about deflecting, but the truth is, I want to tell someone. I’ve been carrying last night around like a lit match,
and if I don’t let some of it out, I might combust.
“It was . . . a lot.” I sit on the edge of the bed, and Chloe immediately scoots closer like she’s afraid she’ll miss a word.
“We were at Washington Square Park, and it was snowing, and he told me he’d been watching me for months. Following me. Learning
my patterns.”
Chloe and Sloane exchange a look that I can’t quite read.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Sloane says, pressing her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh. “It’s just . . . that sounds familiar.”
“Very familiar,” Chloe adds. “Cole literally moved Sloane into his penthouse and cataloged her sock drawer before their first
official date.”
“These men have a type,” Sloane says. “And apparently that type is ‘women worth stalking.’ ”
“It’s practically a rite of passage at this point,” Chloe agrees. “Welcome to the club.”
I blink at them. “You’re both disturbingly okay with this.”
“We’ve made our peace.” Sloane shrugs. “Now keep going. What happened after he confessed?”
“He kissed me, and I just . . . I stopped thinking. About anything. He backed me up against the arch and his hands were in
my hair and I could feel how much he wanted me, and I wanted him right back. I would have let him do anything to me right
there in the middle of the park. I didn’t care who was watching.”
Sloane’s eyebrows have climbed toward her hairline. “That doesn’t sound like ‘just kissing.’ ”
“It wasn’t. I mean, technically it was, but . . .” I blow out a breath. “When we finally stopped, I was shaking. Not from
the cold. From wanting more. He put me in a cab and rode back to Brooklyn with me, and the whole time I was trying to figure
out how to ask him upstairs.”
“And?” Chloe is practically vibrating. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
I hesitate. This is the part I haven’t let myself examine too closely, the doubt that crept in somewhere between his mouth
on mine and the cab pulling up to my building.
“Because as sexy as Knox is, I’m not sure he’s my type. In bed, I mean.” I glance between them, trying to gauge their reactions.
“He’s so controlled all the time. So buttoned up. And I need someone who can . . .” I trail off, not sure how to finish.
“Someone who can what?” Sloane prompts.
“Take control. Really take it. Someone with a darker side.” I feel my cheeks flush. “I like things a certain way, and I don’t
know if Knox has that in him. He seems too . . . proper. Too careful.”
Chloe bursts out laughing. “Oh honey. You might be surprised.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I thought the same thing about Jack when we first got together.” She grins at the memory. “He’s a firefighter. Boy
Scout energy for days. Opens doors, calls older women ma’am, volunteers at the community center on weekends. I figured he’d be the same way in the bedroom. Sweet and gentle and . . .
vanilla.”
“And?”
“And I was very, very wrong.” Her grin turns wicked. “Let’s just say the man has depths. Plural. I made a comment once about
liking it a little rough, and he just looked at me with these eyes and said, ‘How rough?’ I about died.”
Sloane nods. “Cole’s the same. That cold exterior, those perfect suits, and underneath . . .” She fans herself. “The controlled
ones are always hiding something. It’s like the discipline they show the world is just compression. Pressure building. And
when they finally let it out . . .”
“Boom,” Chloe finishes. “Knox might be exactly what you’re looking for. You just have to crack through that military shell.”
I think about Knox standing under the streetlamp outside my building. About the leather notebook I once glimpsed in his pocket,
filled with God knows what observations about me. About the way he admitted to following me for months without a shred of
shame.
He’s a stalker, I remind myself. He’s not as squeaky clean as he comes across.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe there’s more to Knox Bishop than pressed suits and rigid discipline. Maybe that careful composure
is just a lid on something darker, something that would match me perfectly.
The thought sends heat pooling between my thighs.
“Where’s he taking you tonight?” Chloe asks.
“Some Italian place in the West Village. He was annoyingly vague about the details.”
“The man’s a secret-keeper.” Chloe grabs her phone and starts typing. “I’m going to look up West Village Italian restaurants and make predictions about which one.”
“Please don’t.”
“Too late. Already committed.” She scrolls, nodding to herself. “Ooh, there’s one with a secret back garden. Very Knox energy.
Very ‘I surveilled this location before bringing my date here.’ ”
Despite myself, I laugh. “You’re impossible.”
“It’s part of my charm.” She looks up. “For real though, Hails. I’m happy for you. You deserve someone who looks at you like
you’re worth figuring out.”
My phone buzzes. A text from Knox: I’m outside whenever you’re ready. No rush.
“He’s here.” I grab my coat, check my reflection one last time. The woman looking back at me seems brighter than usual, more
present, like someone who actually believes good things might happen to her. Maybe that’s what hope looks like.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Chloe calls as I head for the door.
“That’s a very short list.”
“Exactly.”