Page 121 of Ghosted

I shake my head.

“No.” Her voice is quiet now. “Say it.”

I look at her, at the blue light moving over her face, at the tired under her eyes and the stubborn line of her mouth, and I know I should choose a better word. A safer one. Something that doesn’t sound like a chain.

I don’t.

“What’s mine,” I say.

Her breath catches.

I expect anger, so I brace for it.

Alice looks down at the water instead. “That’s the part that scares me.”

“I know.”

“No, Jagger.” She looks back at me, and her eyes shine without breaking. “I don’t think you do. Because some part of me likes it.”

My whole body goes still.

She laughs once, small and bitter. “Yeah. That’s the part I hate. You say things like that, and I should run. I know I should.”

I barely fucking breathe.

“But when you say it, it doesn’t feel like Johnny,” she says, voice thinner now. “It doesn’t feel like a game. It feels like a door I can open or close, and you’ll stand there bleeding outside it if I tell you no.”

“I would.”

“I know.” Her mouth trembles before she pulls it back under control. “That’s the problem.”

For a second, neither of us moves.

Then she reaches for the hem of her sweater.

My eyes drop before I can stop them.

Alice pauses with her fingers twisted in the fabric. “Don’t make this weird.”

“Too late.”

“Jagger.”

I drag my gaze back to her face and keep it there. “You sure?”

“No.” Her mouth twists. “But I want to get in.”

So I stand and turn around.

She huffs a quiet laugh behind me. “Wow. Manners.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Clothes rustle behind me, and I keep my back turned while her boots hit the tile first, then her sweater. I strip down to my boxers, leaving my jeans and shirt in a pile near the bench, and the cold air bites at my skin. It’s not the cold that has my pulse fucked, though. It’s her. The quiet. The fact that she’s still here after everything.

“You can turn around,” she says.

I do.