Page 53

Yeah. They’re not listening.

I carry their still-arguing voices into my living room, opening the peephole and peering out into the hall to see who in the hell could be coming by this late.

I almost drop my phone when I see who’s on the other side. I’m so surprised that I forget I’m actively on a call, wrenching the door open with entirely more force than necessary.

“What are you doing here?”

Ezra leans against my door, one arm propped against the frame as his long body fills the open space. He’s still dressed for work—fitted, navy blue slacks that hug him in all the right places and a matching jacket that’s tailored just right over a white button-down with the collar undone—and it’s really unfair that he could look so good in hisworkclothes. Seeing him again for the first time since the party is like an actual blow; I can feel the air rushing out of me just as my heart starts to race.

“Hey,” he says casually, as if it’s completely normal for him to be standing outside my door. “Can I come in?”

“What are you doing here?”

He arches one golden brow, his lips twitching. “You already asked me that.”

“Normally, when someone asks a question, the other person answers them the first time.”

He sighs, running his fingers through his hair. “I’d be perfectly happy to talk about it.” He looks down the hall on either side of him. “Maybe just not out here.”

Before this past weekend, I would have shut the door on him. We don’t do things like this—surprising each other at home. Orat least, we didn’t. I don’t really know what we do now. It leaves me slightly addled. Maybe that’s why I move to the side to let him in.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, stepping past me as I close the door behind him.

I remember much too late what I’d been doing before he knocked.

“Shit,” I mutter, bringing my attention to my now suspiciously quiet cell. “Guys, I need to call you back.”

“Is that Ezra?”

“Is he at yourplace?”

“I thought you were done fucking him?”

“Does this mean you—”

I can’t even tell who’s asking what, with the way they’re talking over each other. I know I’m going to have a lot of questions to answer when I see them again. That’s a problem for tomorrow’s Dani.

“Okay, talk soon,” I say loudly into the phone, hanging up on both of them mid–barrage of questions.

Ezra has already made himself at home on my couch, his head leaned back against the cushions and his eyes closed. I walk around the couch in a daze, watching him trace idle patterns into the microfiber material.

“You still haven’t answered me,” I say finally.

His eyes open lazily, and I notice how tired he looks. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his usual frustrating air of playfulness is nowhere to be found.

“Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to see you?”

My heart does a strange flip-flop maneuver in my chest. I open my mouth, then close it, then open it again—realizing I look like a goldfish as my neck heats. “Why?”

“You know,” he chuckles, “I honestly couldn’t tell you. I had a shitty day, and for some reason, the idea of coming over here so you could most likely lay into me about whatever asshole thing I’ve done today sounded like a nice change of pace.”

There’s a flash of guilt that passes through me at his casual admission, one I brush away just as quickly as it comes. It isn’tmyfault Ezra is such an insufferable ass almost one hundred percent of the time.

I stare at him for a moment, his bronze skin practically glowing in the soft light of the lamp on my end table, all too aware of the fact that the last time he was on my couch, he was inside me. I cross my arms over my chest, my nipples pebbling under the faded University of Texas T-shirt I like to sleep in. His eyes sweep down the length of me—goose bumps erupting over every bit of skin they pass over.

Something about the haunted look in his eyes makes it impossible for me to resort to my usual tactics of keeping him at arm’s length. Add that to the confusing encounter at my parents’ party last weekend that I still haven’t sorted through completely, and maybe it could almost explain why I sink down onto the couch only a foot away from him. Still trying to keep my distance.

“Why did you have a shitty day?”