Page 25 of You Found Me in the Dark
“You’re seriously not dead, kidnapped, or hiding a secret pregnancy?” she asked, half-joking, half-dead serious.
“Not even a little bit pregnant,” I said dryly. “And as for the rest… not yet.”
She snorted. “Okay. So—Ty?”
I sighed and nodded. Tip-toeing around the situation, I responded with a simple, “He was there.”
“You okay?”
I hesitated. “Now? Yeah. Then? Not even a little bit.”
I looked down at my chipped nail polish. “He started with small talk. Like the last six years didn’t exist. Now that I think of it, he was a total douche during that, too. Shocker, right? Then he got touchy. Flirty. Way too close.”
Harper’s face tensed, her foot tapping restlessly against the cabinet under the barstool.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I said while instinctively reaching towards my jaw. “Reed found me before it went there. Thank you for texting him.”
She exhaled, some of the tightness leaving her shoulders. “I wasn’t sure if it was the right move… but when I saw who you were talking to—I just knew. I couldn’t let you be alone with him.”
I nodded. “You did the right thing.”
Before she could say anything else, the soft creak of floorboards reached us from the living room, followed by a low groan and the telltale sound of a body standing up.
Then his voice—still rough with sleep. “You two always talk this much before coffee?”
I looked up just as Reed stepped into the kitchen, his T-shirt wrinkled and his dark hair sticking up in every direction, eyes barely open. God, even first thing in the morning, he was breathtaking. My stomach flipped.
Harper smirked at him and leaned back in her seat. “Only when there’s good gossip. Morning, sunshine.”
He ignored his sister and shuffled past us toward the coffee pot, grabbing his favorite mug from the shelf like he had done a hundred times before. I try to stay away from coffee, but I always start a pot before Harper comes over. Chances are, if it’s before four in the afternoon, she is drinking coffee. It seemed like after the boys turned thirty, they couldn’t start the day without a cup or four.
“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” he said, pouring coffee with one hand and rubbing the back of his neck with the other. “Just kind of… woke up to the sound of my name.”
I flushed. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to?—”
He waved me off, glancing over his shoulder. “It’s fine. I know you guys are having your ‘yap sesh’ or whatever the fuck Harper calls it. ”
He didn’t look mad or annoyed, just really tired. Harperstudied the side of his face with one eyebrow raised. “You good, Reed?”
He took a long sip of coffee, finally meeting her eyes. “I’m fine. Just—long night.”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice softer now. “You did well.”
He nodded, not saying anything, but I saw the way his jaw worked. The way his eyes flicked to me for just a second longer than they needed to.
Harper picked up on it, too. I felt it in the shift of her posture, the way her energy subtly withdrew to give us room without actually leaving.
And still, neither of us said it out loud. Not what happened. Not what almost happened.
So I just looked at him and said quietly, “Thanks for showing up last night.”
Reed’s gaze held mine, unreadable.
“Always,” he said.
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