Page 155 of Lady and the Hitman

I didn’t want to go anywhere that felt like mine, because nothing did anymore. Everything had started to feel foreign. Like my life had been built on someone else’s foundation.

Trevor glanced over as we sat at a red light, the glow from the dashboard painting soft shadows on his face. “You want me to take you home?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“No?”

“I can’t go back there. Not yet.” I swallowed hard, voice low. “Will you just … drive?”

He didn’t ask questions. Just gave a short nod and turned left instead of right.

We passed shuttered gas stations, empty diners, streetlamps that flickered against the hush of the night. Charleston slept while my world came undone.

After a few quiet miles, he said, “There’s a place I could take you.”

I turned my head toward him. “Where?”

“Isle of Palms. Remember that stretch of beach? Where we went that one night after dinner at Poe’s?”

A memory bloomed like a bruise—salt air, bare feet, Trevor’s laugh as I chased him through the surf, both of us half-drunk and foolish enough to think nothing could touch us.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He glanced over again, searching my face. “We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything. Just sit. Watch the waves.”

“Okay,” I said. “That sounds perfect.”

We didn’t speak much after that. Just drove in silence, the kind that felt suspended, sacred. Like we both knew something fragile was hanging in the air between us, and neither of us wanted to break it.

When we got there, he parked in a space near the dunes and popped the trunk. I slid out of the car and wrapped my arms around myself, the ocean wind cutting through my hair.

Trevor came around with a blanket tucked under one arm and a few cans of rosé in the other.

I raised an eyebrow. “Prepared much?”

He shrugged with a small grin. “Old habits.”

I didn’t have the energy to roll my eyes, but I gave him a half-smile, grateful in spite of myself.

We walked across the sand barefoot, the granules warm and fine under our feet. The moon was barely visible behind a curtain of clouds, casting everything in shades of charcoal and silver. The waves rolled in soft and slow, rhythmic like a lullaby.

Trevor spread out the blanket and sank onto it, patting the spot beside him.

I hesitated, then dropped down next to him, pulling my knees to my chest.

He popped open the rosé and handed me a can.

I took a long sip. It was the first thing that had cut through the numbness all day.

Trevor leaned back on his elbows, looking out at the water. “Still beautiful out here.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “It is.”

We sat there like that for a while, passing the can back and forth, listening to the ocean. A part of me wanted to pretend I could stay in this moment forever—untouched, suspended, safe. But another part, the sharper one, knew better. Knew the pain would follow me no matter where I went.

He broke the silence first. “I know you said you didn’t want to go home. But do you want to talk about what’s got you this shaken? Besides your parents?”

I stared at the horizon, my voice quiet. “I made a big mistake.”