Page 66 of You Owe Me

I just watch.

The kind of watching that makes people confess. That makes them squirm. Ainsley doesn’t squirm. She just sits there, chin lifted like she’s daring me to blink first.

I don’t.

She folds her hands on the table. Smooth. Controlled. But her knee bounces once. She catches it, fast.

The hoodie’s slipping off one shoulder.

She doesn’t fix it.

I tilt my head slightly. Noticed.

Her eyes flick to the IOU still under my hand, then up to my face. “You gonna tell me what I owe you or just stare at me like you’re in the middle of a villain monologue?”

A corner of my mouth twitches.

There she is.

I lean forward, forearms on the table, voice low. “You already know what I want.”

She shifts. Breathes in slowly through her nose. “If this is about sex?—”

“It’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

I tap the edge of the card with my finger. Once. Twice. A steady pulse.

“I want the truth.”

Another beat of silence. She glances at the hallway, like the walls might offer her a better out than I will.

“You’re cashing in an IOU for that?”

“No,” I say. “I’m cashing it for your time.”

She blinks.

I lean back. “Whatever version of you that’s been floating around this apartment the last two weeks? That’s not the girl who eats mac and cheese at two in the morning and insults my investment strategies while wearing a sea lion on her socks.”

She flinches at that. Tiny. But I see it.

Nailed it.

Still, she doesn’t talk.

So, I deal another card from the deck. Slowly. Methodically. Like it’s just another game.

But this one?

This one’s stacked.

And she knows it.

She watches the card land between us like it might explode.

I don’t look at it. Doesn’t matter what it says. The message is the same—your move.

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