5. Scarlett
Scarlett
I t was too warm out for a fire, but we lit one anyway—because we always did. Because the smoke made the night feel bigger, and the glow gave us an excuse to sit closer.
Lena dragged out blankets. Kane brought beers and half a bottle of tequila. Rhett messed with the speaker, trying to find something “moody but not too sad” while Sloane stacked graham crackers, no doubt trying to out-build her own anxiety.
I dropped into the sand, knees pulled tight to my chest, the beer sweating in my hand.
Hemingway flopped down beside me, his snoring barely audible over the low thump of music.
My cheeks were flushed, but I wasn’t sure if it was the fire or the alcohol or the way Trace hadn’t stopped looking at me since he got here.
“Drink,” Rhett said, handing me a red cup I didn’t ask for.
“I already have one.”
“Cool. Now you have two.” Rhett said, flashing that easy smile as he dropped beside me, one leg stretched out like he owned the firelight. I took it. Because bad decisions taste better when someone else hands them to you.
I gave him a lazy smirk, took a sip, and instantly regretted it. Tequila. Fuck.
Alden settled down on the other side of me. “You probably shouldn’t drink both of those, Love.”
“Then don’t watch me,” I said, my voice a little too loose.
He looked at the fire and shook his head like it would magically reveal something.
I took another long sip. Felt the heat coat my chest, curl under my ribs. Felt the edge of myself fray.
Across the fire, Trace sat hunched forward, bottle dangling from one hand, the other tracing circles in the ash with a stick.
His tattoos flickered in and out of the flames' glow—dark shapes that looked alive in the heat. He wasn’t watching me.
Not directly, anyway. Just… tracking every breath I took, like I was about to do something reckless.
And maybe I was. He looked like someone I should run from.
Hell, they all did. But I never had. I should’ve turned around the second I saw him.
Walked away. Saved myself. But I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
There was something about him that made me want to look twice—and maybe lie about it later. And I was still looking, still staring.
I looked away too fast.
Alden’s knee brushed mine. “You okay, Love?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But at least I look good doing it.”
He huffed a laugh. “You always do.”
I turned to face him, a little too fast, a little too close. My shoulder brushed his. His breath caught, and I could feel the shift. Tequila making my tongue bold.
“Were you ever gonna tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you what?”
“That you wanted me.”
He blinked, and his fingers flexed where they rested in the sand. But he didn’t deny it.
“TRUTH OR DARE, BITCHES.” Kane yelled, launching a marshmallow into the fire like it was a grenade and everyone groaned.
“Don’t be cowards,” he said. “It’s tradition.”
“You just want an excuse to get naked,” Sloane shot back.
“Let the man live,” Rhett added. “He peaked in high school.”
“I’ll go first,” I said, raising my cup.
“Scarlett, no,” Lena hissed.
“Truth,” I declared.
Kane grinned like a devil. “Do you still think about him?”
The air sucked out of the circle.
I stared. “Define ‘him.’”
“You know who.”
Trace didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. But his jaw locked.
I drained the rest of my drink like it might erase him from my bloodstream. “Next.”
The game continued, but I wasn’t in it anymore. Not really. My mind drifted and eventually I wandered down to the water alone.
The lake shimmered, holding a secret I’d never know. My bare feet sank into the cold sand, the breeze tangling my hair. I felt wild and sharp. Aching.
“You’re drunk.”
I didn’t turn around. “Takes one to know one.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what’s your excuse?”
I turned, facing Trace fully in the dark. He didn’t look offended, just amused. That crooked grin was back, slow and knowing. “Careful, Sunshine,” he said, voice playful. “You keep talking like that, I might start thinking you missed me.”
And maybe I had. Not just him, the whole thing.
That feeling of being seen, really seen, by someone who didn’t need small talk, or surface-level bullshit to get to the heart of me.
Trace always had a way of pulling things to the surface I didn’t mean to show.
Like he was trained for it. Hell, maybe he was.
The others joked, but I’d seen the way they’d move when they didn’t think I was watching. The way Trace always seemed to put himself between me and the door. The way Alden scanned a room before he sat. Like instinct. Or something deeper.
I swallowed the thought. Too far down that path and I’d start asking questions I wasn’t ready to hear answers to.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, voice cracked.
He didn’t answer right away. His fingers were twitching again—thumb rubbing his forearm like the ink there could speak for him.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth. “Yeah. It is.”
My pulse jumped. I hated him for it. Hated myself more.
I stood, stepped back, breath catching. “You don’t get to do this.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re here .”
He looked at me the way pain remembers where it started.
Then he just walked away.