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My ears flush. “Ah, thanks, man. I know you always have my back,” I promise him. “There’s more to all this, but it’s not really my story to tell.”

“Alrighty, well, I’ll be here when you want to talk about it,” Nathan says slowly, and leans back in his seat.

It’s quiet for a moment, I don’t know what else to say about Dante, at least what I should say, and I’d rather not answer questions about the sex. With Nathan, he’s either going to move on from the subject or ask me what it was like.

Thankfully, he seems like he’s leaning toward the former.

“Do you wanna order some takeout?” he asks.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

While Nathan takes his phone out to open the app and pick something, I debate pulling mine out. I haven’t talked to Lena since the breakup. Neither of us has texted the other to see how we’re doing.

There’s a part of me that wants to message her and ask how she is, but I realize what I really want is to talk to her about Dante.

The last thing she deserves is her ex-boyfriend messaging her for emotional support. So I don’t text her, and just spend the next couple hours eating and hanging out with Nathan.

It’s only eight at night when I get home. I know I have multiple texts from Dante that I haven’t answered. It would be easy to say I’m not ignoring him and I’m just busy, but I know the truth. I still don’t know what to say about what happened this morning.

But in very much Dante fashion, when I get to my apartment, Dante is leaning against the wall beside the door, his arms folded and a suspicious look on his face.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks.

“Are you still stalking me?” I reply, trying to avoid his question.

He tilts his head as I step forward to unlock the door. “I expected to bring you home from class, but you weren’t there.”

“I went to Nathan’s,” I explain.

“You should have told me.”

“I didn’t think about it.”

Tension is quickly building between us as I step inside and let him follow me. I take my shoes and coat off, watching as he does the same. His broad shoulders slip out of his jacket, his strong arms hugged by the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing. It would be so easy to get distracted…and, I realize, to distract him.

I step closer to him and allow myself to give into the desire to place my hands on his shoulders and caress the neckline of his shirt with my thumbs.

“There could still be someone after you,” he reminds me with a frown. “It’s dangerous. You need to tell me when and where you go somewhere.”

“Are you going to tell me when and where you go somewhere, then?” I ask. The words come out of me in a rush, far more clipped than I intended.

Dante eyes my face. “I’m not the one in danger.”

“That’s a lie. You’re in even more danger than me, you simply think you can handle yourself and I can’t,” I say. I start to slip my hands off his shoulders, but Dante grabs one of my wrists and holds it where it is.

“You can’t. Not with this. They tried to kill you by putting a fucking bomb in your car, or don’t you remember being tackled to the ground?” His voice is a low growl that makes my hairstand on end. He lets go of my hand and I pull it away, stepping back a couple feet. I’m about to open my mouth to speak, but he pulls his shirt off over his head.

Dante tosses his shirt to the side, revealing his scarred and tattooed torso. “Remember these?” he asks me, and runs his fingers along still-healing cuts that he received while saving me, wounds that I so tenderly washed the morning after.

“If I hadn’t gotten to you when I did, they’d be a lot fucking worse, Ethan.”

My throat tightens and my eyes sting with tears yet again. I’m so sick of feeling so vulnerable.

“This isn’t about that!” I blurt out. “This morning, I…” I can’t get the words out of my mouth.

Dante’s expression shifts into one of confusion, and then he steps closer. “This morning…right, what happened with Victor. I figured it freaked you out with how quickly you ran off, but I don’t know why.”

“You don’t know why?” I laugh weakly. “You punched a guy in the face. If he hadn’t left, who knows what else might have happened? I know he was calling me names and assuming things about me, about us, but was it really that serious?”