20 #2
“He always looks emotionally unstable,” I said, clutching the phone like it had personally betrayed me.
“Yes, but tonight he looks committed to the aesthetic,” Charm said.
Easton knocked again, harder.
“Aura,” he called through the door, his voice muffled but unmistakable. “I know you’re here. Just open, please.”
The please did what the pounding hadn’t.
It scared me.
I stood, the blanket sliding to the floor around my feet. Bliss and Charm immediately stood with me, which was deeply unhelpful because now all three of us were lined up in the living room like emotional support bodyguards in fuzzy socks.
“You don’t have to open it,” Bliss said, but her voice was already softer.
Charm crossed her arms. “You also don’t have to not open it. For clarity, those are your options.”
I looked at her. “That was terrible clarity.”
“I’m emotional.”
Easton knocked once more, but softer this time. “Clarke.”
That name through the door hit me in the ribs.
Not Aura. Not the name I had cried with in his apartment. Clarke. The one he used when he was trying not to hand me his whole throat.
“I don’t want another fight,” I whispered.
Bliss’s expression shifted immediately, excitement draining into something protective. “Then tell him that.”
Charm nodded. “And if he ignores it, we throw snacks and call Cade.”
“You’re not calling Cade.”
“Fine. Ryan.”
“You’re not calling Ryan either.”
Charm looked away a little too fast. “I didn’t say I wanted to.”
Bliss and I both stared at her.
She lifted her chin. “This is not about me.”
I exhaled, wiped under my eyes even though I wasn’t crying, and walked to the door before courage could leak out through my fuzzy socks. My hand shook when I turned the lock.
The second I opened it, rain-cooled air rushed in, carrying the smell of wet pavement and Easton.
He looked worse in person.
Not hurt worse. The bruising at his cheekbone had faded to yellow-green at the edges, and the cut at his mouth had started healing. His knuckles were still wrapped.
His eyes were the problem.
Tired. Red-rimmed. Too bright in that dangerous way men got when they hadn’t slept enough and had spent too many hours losing arguments with themselves.
His gaze moved over me fast, not sexual, not casual. Checking. My hoodie. My leggings. My face. The girls’ blanket still pooled behind my feet.
Something in him loosened by half an inch.
Then he stepped inside like he had forgotten other people might exist in my apartment.
“I know it’s late,” he said, rain dripping from his hoodie onto our entry mat. “I know I shouldn’t have shown up like this, and I know you probably don’t want to see me, but I needed to say this before I lost the nerve.”
I shut the door slowly behind him.
“Easton.”
“No, let me get it out.” He dragged one wet hand through his hair, making it worse, then looked at me with an intensity that made the apartment shrink around us.
“Forgiveness is tricky. I keep thinking about what I said, and the words are easy, Aura. That’s the part that’s been fucking with my head.
Someone does something small, they apologize, and you say it’s fine.
Mistakes happen. You’re forgiven. Clean, right? ”
“Easton,” I said again, a warning this time, because my heart had already started moving toward him and I didn’t trust it.
“But this isn’t small.” His voice roughened, and he stepped farther into the kitchen without looking around.
“This is huge and so fucking delicate. This is trust and love and truth, and handing that back to you is terrifying because it costs me everything. It costs me the part of myself that kept saying if I stayed angry enough, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to hope again. And I think—”
His eyes shifted over my shoulder when he heard movement.
He stopped, and I closed my eyes.
Bliss and Charm stood in the kitchen entrance, blankets around their shoulders, snacks in hand, looking absolutely unbothered by being caught eavesdropping at full volume.
Easton blinked at them. “Oh. Hey.”
Bliss lifted her hand in a tiny wave. “Hey.”
Charm held up the bowl of chocolate-covered pretzels. “We brought emotional provisions.”
Easton looked from them to me, then back to them, clearly waiting for the normal social cue where people left the room to avoid witnessing a private emotional reckoning.
Neither of them moved.
He cleared his throat. “Could you maybe give us a minute?”
“No,” Bliss said sweetly.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “B.”
Charm leaned one hip against the doorway. “The last time we watched you two talk, she came home looking like a haunted widow in a referee costume.”
Bliss raised both hands when Easton’s face tightened. “Hold on. We know she hurt you too. We are very aware of that. We have discussed accountability. We have grown as women.”
Charm nodded. “Painfully.”
“But if this is groveling,” Bliss continued, pointing between him and me, “we’re going to watch it.”
Easton stared at her.
I stared at her.
Charm ate a pretzel.
“This isn’t groveling,” Easton said slowly.
Bliss narrowed her eyes. “That’s disappointing branding.”
“It’s a conversation.”
Charm tilted her head. “Is it a conversation with remorse?”
“Yes.”
“Emotional vulnerability?”
Easton’s jaw flexed. “Unfortunately.”
“Potential romantic reconciliation?”
His gaze slid to me, and the look hit so hard my knees almost forgot their purpose. “That depends on Aura.”
Bliss sucked in a breath. “Oh, I like that answer.”
“You need to go,” I told them.
They both looked at me, and neither moved.
I turned back to Easton, helpless and mortified. “They’re not leaving.”
His mouth twitched, barely. “I gathered.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He looked at the girls again, then back at me. His voice softened, but not enough to make it private. “Intention is everything. If your friends have to watch me have this conversation with you so you feel safe, I’ll have it with them standing right there holding pretzels.”
Charm and Bliss both sighed, and I rolled my eyes.
The teasing didn’t disappear, exactly, but something underneath it went quiet and careful. They understood at the same time I did.
This mattered.
This was Easton saying he wouldn’t make me choose between privacy and safety. He wouldn’t ask me to send away the women I had just gotten back so he could have access to the softest part of me alone.
My throat tightened.
“They aren’t here because I’m scared of you,” I said.
“I know.”
“They’re here because they’re nosy and emotionally codependent.”
Bliss nodded. “So true.”
Charm lifted one finger. “We prefer devoted.”
Easton’s eyes stayed on mine. “Then they can stay devoted in the doorway.”
“No,” Bliss whispered suddenly, grabbing Charm’s cardigan sleeve. “We can’t.”
Charm looked at her. “What?”
“This is actually a big deal.”
“I know.”
“We have to leave.”
Charm glanced between us, then whispered back so loudly the neighbors probably heard, “You need to go to Cade’s.”
Bliss whispered at the exact same volume, “Yeah, no, they’re about to bang in like five minutes.”
My head snapped toward them. “We can hear you.”
Charm waved one hand. “Then respect our process.”
Easton rubbed a hand over his mouth, but I saw the almost-smile before he hid it.
Bliss looked at Charm. “Do you want to come to the penthouse?”
Charm’s cheeks turned pink. “No, I can find somewhere to go.”
Bliss’s eyebrows climbed.
I crossed my arms. “Somewhere?”
Charm looked at the ceiling. “A location.”
Easton glanced at me. “Is location Ryan Decker shaped?”