Page 188 of The Lies We Play

I smile with my eyes closed.

“Then fifteen,” I say.

Halston kisses my shoulder and settles in like we have all the time in the world.

Maybe we don’t.

Maybe we have schedules, flights, families, cameras, rules, and the long, brutal work of deciding what love looks like when it has more than two hands reaching for it.

But right now, his body is warm against mine. Afterward, he stays where he is for another beat. Forehead against mine. Breathing. His hand resting on the side of my face.

I say, “Hal.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

His brows pull together. “For what?”

I could say, For this.

For your mouth. Your hands. Your patience. Your body. For seeing every bruise and not making me feel weak for having them. For knowing when I need to be taken apart and when I need to be put back together.

Instead, I give him the truth that can hold all of it.

“For taking the day off for me.”

His eyes close.

One second. Maybe two.

When they open, the dangerous parts of him remain. The guarded parts too. But beneath them, something has eased.

He kisses me once, soft and brief.

“I’d take more than a day,” he says.

I believe him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Halston

Now . . .

The first thing I notice is the lipstick.

Not my stepmother’s face. Not the car idling at the curb like a verdict in leather seats. Not the driver pretending he is not here to report every breath I take back to people who call it concern when they mean surveillance.

The lipstick.

Red. Precise. Reapplied.

The shade she wears when she is about to step into a room full of donors and become the tragic, elegant mother figure of a recovering man. The woman who never raised her voice, never failed in public, never let anyone see the places where our family rotted beneath marble and money.

She turns when I open the door, her earrings glinting beneath the soft sweep of her hair. New earrings. Pearls this time. Understated, expensive, Saint Claire-adjacent. Perfect for breakfast with people who enjoy writing checks after hearing about resilience over poached eggs and hollandaise.

“There you are,” she says, with the small smile she has practiced for years in mirrors I avoid now.