Page 31 of Only Be Mine

“Okay?” he whispered.

I exhaled a shaky laugh. “Yeah.”

His smile was quiet. “Good.”

I should have stepped away, but I didn’t.

I let myself stand there for one more second, breathing him in, feeling the impossible steadiness of being wanted without being pushed.

Then I forced my feet to move.

I got into my car, hands shaking as I started the engine.

And as I pulled away, I looked in the mirror.

John was still standing there, watching until my taillights disappeared.

Like he meant it.

Like tomorrow was real.

Like I hadn’t just made the kind of choice that changes everything.

Chapter 10

Cate

Present

Anotification buzzed in my pocket, and I flinched like it had touched a bruise.

Amy’s eyes flicked toward me, reading the tension in my shoulders before I even moved. “You gonna check it?”

I pulled my phone out and stared at the screen.

Trevor: Hey, babe. Can you grab the suits from the hotel tonight? Mom says they’re ready

The normal response would’ve been easy. Sure. No problem. See you soon.

My brain knew the script, my body didn’t.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket like it was too hot to hold. “Later.”

Amy didn’t comment on the way my voice cracked around the single word.

We turned down a side street where the traffic thinned. The buildings looked older here - brick and stone, crooked windows, history that hadn’t been renovated into something shiny and new.

“This is where you think,” Amy said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

I nodded once.

When I was younger, I’d walked for miles just to outpace my own head. When life got loud, movement was the only thing that turned the volume down.

But today, it wasn’t working.

Because no matter how far I walked, I couldn’t put distance between myself and the truth.

John had asked.