Chapter 35
The moment we stepped out of the café—Blake’s shadow still clinging to my skin like smoke—the world tilted.
The sun hit the pavement in bright gold sheets, the heat licking up my legs, warm and soft.
Dust motes swirled in the air like tiny dancing spirits caught in the afternoon light.
And there, parked by the kerb like he’d been waiting for years, was Peter with the sleek sedan humming quietly behind him.
Dane’s hand hovered at the small of my back. Not touching. Not yet. Just close enough that I could feel the phantom of it.
A promise.
A question.
A pulse.
“Ma’am,” Peter said as he opened the door for me.
Dane’s eyes flicked to Blake, who was still standing frozen inside the café doorway.
His expression was a bruised, hollow mixture of disbelief and fury.
I didn’t let myself look long. Didn’t let myself drink in his regret or the way he suddenly seemed small in the doorway he once filled with loud confidence.
I followed Dane into the car.
And the door clicked shut like a chapter closing.
The car smelled faintly of cedar and clean leather. Cool air brushed my shoulders. Dane slid in beside me, and every inch of my body became aware of him his warmth, his slow inhale, the way he turned slightly toward me like my gravity was the only thing he could obey.
Neither of us spoke.
Not at first.
The silence wasn’t empty. It was charged full of the things we weren’t saying, the things we were terrified to say, the things aching out of us in the tiny spaces between breaths.
Peter pulled away smoothly, and the world outside blurred into sunlight and motion.
Dane’s thigh brushed mine.
Just once.
And the breath punched from my lungs.
When I looked up, he was already watching me.
Soft.
Hesitant.
Like I was something rare he was scared to break by looking too directly.
His fingertips grazed the back of my hand feather-light, the barest whisper. I turned my palm instinctively, letting my fingers find his.
Not grabbing.
Not clinging.
Just… touching.
Testing.
Every nerve ending in my body lit up like sparks flickering under my skin.
Something shifted between us. Something old. Something that had been hiding, waiting, breathing in the dark.
We didn’t talk about last night. We didn’t talk about Blake.
Not yet. Today was bright. Too bright for shadows. Too bright for pain.
So, when Peter parked near the little antique bookshop the one with the leaning shelves and windows tattooed with fingerprints I stepped out and let Dane follow me into the warmth.
The bell above the door chimed, and the smell hit me first leather, dust, old paper, forgotten secrets. My lungs expanded as if I’d been underwater for months.
I touched a row of worn spines gently with my fingertips.
Dane watched me with this small, secret smile like he’d been waiting to witness this exact moment.
“Everything okay?” he asked softly.
I nodded, letting my fingers trail along aged leather, feeling the grooves, the cracks, the history in every line.
“This place feels… like a heartbeat,” I murmured.
He stepped closer, slow enough that I could stop him if I needed to. I didn’t.
His shoulder brushed mine. I felt it all the way down to my ankles.
“You look like you belong in places like this,” he said quietly. “Like stories recognise you.”
Heat crawled up my throat.
My phone vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
I stiffened.
I didn’t need to check. I knew the rhythm of Blake’s messages too well urgent, demanding, possessive, clawing.
Dane’s brow furrowed slightly, his jaw flexing.
“You don’t have to read it,” he said.
“I won’t,” I whispered.
And I didn’t.
Not with Dane’s hand brushing mine again in the narrow aisle. Not with sunlight pouring in through the dusty windows. Not with the air thick with wonder instead of warning.
We wandered through record shops next, places with vinyl’s stacked in chaotic towers, the scent of old wood and memories heavy in the air. Dane let me pick up albums, ask questions, ramble about tone and rasp and the sound of heartbreak pressed into spinning grooves.
He listened.
Truly listened.
With soft hums and quiet smiles and a gaze that felt like a warm palm pressed to my spine.
My phone buzzed.
Again.
And again.
Ignore it.
Ignore it.
Ignore it.
I did.
And when he lifted a strand of my hair to move it behind my shoulder, his knuckles grazing my cheek, I felt something inside me loosen—a knot that had been choking me for years.
We slipped into an antique shop next, filled with velvet chairs that looked like they’d once belonged to queens, chandeliers wrapped in cobwebs, and tables carved with stories in their grains.
“My publishing house,” I breathed without thinking.
Dane stopped walking.
“What?”
I blinked, suddenly shy. “It’s stupid.”
“Penn.” His voice dropped into something deep, something warm, something that slid into my bones. “Tell me.”
“I always imagined a place like this… but alive. With books stacked everywhere, old typewriters clacking, velvet chairs, record players in corners. A place that smelled like dust and stories and beginnings.”
He swallowed. Hard.
The tenderness in his expression made my ribs ache.
“That sounds like you,” he said. “Exactly like you.”
And something in his voice told me he didn’t mean the idea. He meant the dreamer behind it.
Outside, sunlight spilled across the footpath.
My phone vibrated again.
And again.
The storm was building in Dane’s eyes.
But he said nothing.
Instead, he guided me toward the crystal shop.
The air inside flickered with beams of rainbow light, refracted through quartz and amethyst and stones polished to silky shine.
I touched a smoky quartz tower, cool under my fingertips, grounding.
“This one calms racing thoughts,” the shopkeeper said.
I nodded, feeling the weight of it.
The steadiness.
Dane bought it without a word.
He didn’t say why.
He didn’t have to.
The reason was written all over his face.