Page 147 of The Wild Card

I stare out the windshield at the endless stretch of highway. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You just said you made out in a loft!”

“We did. And it was…” I search for the right word. “Amazing. But we didn’t really talk about what it means. What we are now. What happens next.”

“So talk about it when you get home.”

“Yeah.” I chew my bottom lip. “Yeah, we will.”

I’m sure we will.

* * *

Except we don’t.

By the time we get back to Dallas, it’s late. We haul our bags upstairs in tired silence, moving around each other in the familiar choreography of roommates. But there’s a new awareness now—every brush of shoulders, every accidental touch, sends electricity skittering across my skin.

“I should—uh,” Crew gestures toward his room. “Early day tomorrow.”

“Right. Yeah. Me too.” I don’t have an early day. I have nothing until noon. But I don’t know what else to say.

We stand in the hallway, three feet apart, neither of us moving.

“This weekend was—” He stops. Starts again. “I’m glad we—”

“Me too.”

Silence. Murphy meows from somewhere in the apartment, annoyed at being ignored.

“Goodnight, Emmie.”

“Goodnight, Crew.”

I step forward and wrap my arms around him. He stiffens for a fraction of a second—old habits—then melts into it, his arms coming around me, his face pressed into my hair.

We stay like that for a long moment. Just holding each other.

“Goodnight,” he says again, quieter this time.

“Goodnight.”

We separate. Go to our own rooms. Our own beds.

It’s weird.

I lie awake for hours, cuddling with Murphy and staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the weekend. The kiss by the dresser. The loft. The way he looked at me in the firelight.

My phone buzzes. Sadie.

Well??? Did you talk???

We hugged and went to bed.

EMMIE.

I know.

Separate beds???