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He looks as surprised by the question as I am to have asked it. His eyes widen a fraction, his lips parting, and he studies my face for a beat before answering, “The same reason for all my shitty days.”

It’s a cryptic answer, one I can tell he doesn’t want to elaborate on. Weirdly, that makes me want to push him. To force the answers out of him. Whether that’s because of the desire he sets off in me to win or genuine concern, I can’t be sure.

“Gonna have to give me more than that.”

His lips purse as he turns his head to scrub his hand down his face, his palm lingering on his jaw as he considers. “Family drama. I promise it’s nothing you want to hear about.”

“What, are we not getting along with dear old daddy Alexander?”

His laugh is humorless. Dark, even. “There’s nothing dear about Alexander Hart.”

That gives me pause. Sure, I’ve never heard Ezra mentioning his dad, but I mean, theyworktogether. There’s nothing to suggest there’s bad blood between them.

“You’d think he’d be over the moon with all the cases you’re always winning for him.”

Ezra’s lips twitch. “So you are acknowledging my win rate now?”

“Abstractly,” I answer flatly. “Without any interest whatsoever.”

“Of course not,” Ezra murmurs with actual humor now. He eyes me from the side, the amused look fading over the course of the next few seconds, his eyes losing focus as he seems to get lost in his thoughts. “Do you ever feel like…” He shakes his head. “Forget it. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

For reasons I can’t fathom, I am infinitely curious about whatever he was about to ask me.

“No,” I urge. “What? Do I ever feel what?”

“Like…” Ezra sighs, letting his head drop to the back of the couch. “Like you’re just going through the motions? Like nothing you do matters because everything is always going to be just as shitty tomorrow as it was today?” He huffs out another blast of air that I think is supposed to be a laugh but comes out like more of a scoff. “Like your entire life has already been decided, and there’s nothing you can do about it?”

His questions leave me gaping, his voice raw and pained and unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him. It makes me feel unsettled, with no idea how to answer. Especially since I knowexactlywhat that feels like. It’s a feeling that’s been embedded in my bones since I was seventeen years old, sitting across from my parents and hearing that my whole life was a lie, and it wasentirelymy fault. It’s a feeling that was solidified only a few short years later when I realized that the only person you can count on is yourself.

But I can’t tell him any of that. Even with the way things have…shifted between us, I can’t bring myself to be that vulnerable with him. Even if he’s choosing to do so with me. I’m in unfamiliar territory here. I don’t know what todowith a vulnerable Ezra, which is exactly how he seems right now.

“This is about your father?”

“My father,” he snorts. “God. My father…” He shakes his head, and I have the strangest urge to reach out, to soothe him. It’s confusing as hell. “Everything comes back to him.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, simply because I have no idea what else to say.

He shakes his head again. “No, I’m sorry. I’m sure this isn’t at all what you’d like to be doing right now. Especially with me. I just…Today was such a goddamned nightmare, and I just needed…somethingthat felt normal.”

My heart trips in my chest. I ignore it.

“And you came…here.”

He looks at me then, his eyes studying my face as if he’s still slightly confused about why he did so. “I did.”

“Still having a little bit of trouble with that part,” I tell him honestly.

“I thought we were admitting when we miss each other now?”

My stupid heart flip-flops again. Maybe I should see a cardiologist.

“Ezra,” I start warily, my first instinct to push him away. “I think maybe that was—”

He shifts his body, bringing himself closer to me. “You didn’t miss me, Dani?”

“I—” His face is too close to think. His fingers reach to trail along my jaw, and my traitorous eyes flutter at the sensation. “No.”

“You’re such a liar,” he laughs softly. “But that’s okay.” His finger ghosts ever so gently along my lower lip, tracing a slow back-and-forth. “I’ll let you keep pretending. For now.”