Page 65 of After All This Time

However, by the time the clock hits nine-thirty, my mind starts doing that fun thing where it begins to wander.

Is he working late? Is he on a date? Is he dead in a ditch somewhere?

Okay, that last one's pretty dramatic, but my brain still drifts there.

This is Tobias we're talking about. Of course he's on a date.

And I shouldn't care. I don't care.

I can practically smell the bullshit in every word I try to sell myself.

Girls have always surrounded Tobias. They came and went, never staying long enough for their names to stick, each one effortlessly beautiful—just like him. But he was always unattainable. Nobody ever kept him for long, and I can't say I hated it.

Back then, Tobias's skin was still free of ink, and his piercings hadn't yet made an appearance, but he didn't need those details to stand out.

With eyes the color of a winter morning and lipsI once thought would taste like sunshine and summer afternoons.

But I'm almost certain I was wrong.

Those lips wouldn't just kiss; they'd consume and unravel me until there was nothing left.

He was always my secret, hidden in the corners of my mind where no one could find him. The one I let myself think about in the quiet moments when no one else was around to see. But now, it’s not just that he’s my secret—it feels like, somehow, I’ve become his too.

Tobias has always looked at me as if I mattered—not just someone in the background, but someone who belonged with him in whatever capacity we existed back then.

The funny thing is, he didn't even look at the girls he dated the way he looked at me. What we had went beyond superficial attraction. We got each other in a way I've never had with anyone else. He saw the parts of me I didn't show anyone else, and I saw the pieces of him he kept hidden beneath the charm and confidence.

A part of me envied the girls who got to be close to him, even if it was only for a little while. But I pushed it down. I ignored it. Because what we had felt more important, more real, and I couldn't let anything—least of all a silly little crush—get in the way. But sitting here now, watching the clock tick toward ten, I try not to imagine whose bed he might be in.

After grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen, I hear the front door open. I should just go to bed. I should let it go, pretend I didn't hear anything, and see him tomorrow.

But of course, I don't.

Instead, I stride out into the entryway in my cloud-printed shorts and matching crop tee, looking like Andy's wallpaper fromToy Story.

When I step into the living room, Tobias looks up, surprise flashing across his face. "Hey," he says, his tone easy, but there's something there—something subtle and unreadable. It's not quite nervousness, but more like he's unsure of how to gauge me.

"You okay? You're back late."

"You waiting up for me, Firefly?"

"No," I shoot back, rolling my eyes like his nickname for me doesn't make my chest tighten every damn time. "I was just about to go to bed, but you have no idea how to be quiet when you open a door."

"Says the drunk who flew through the house not that long ago, knocking shit over."

I let out a laugh, one that comes too easily, but it freezes in my throat the moment I hear the sound of a toilet flushing and taps running in the bathroom.

The room goes still, my laughter shattering into silence as the noise echoes through the apartment.

The sharp stab of jealousy hits me before I can even fully register it, sinking deep and dragging the air from my lungs.

"Someone here?" I ask, my voice tighter than I mean for it to be.

I don't look away. I don't blink. I'm hoping it's just Harry or one of the others and that this isn't what I think it is.

But Tobias's eyes stay on mine, and something in his expression confirms it before he even says a word. A split second of pure, unfiltered guilt. It's all there, but the warning comes too late as the bathroom door opens and soft footsteps approach us.

And then I see her.

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