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Jess studied me for a moment, then smiled. “Good thing you straightened that toothbrush earlier. He seems like the kind of man who’d notice something like that.”

I groaned. “Good night, Jess.”

I was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang.

“Did Max forget something?” Sam called out from the kitchen.

“Not that I know of.” I returned to the front door and opened it.

Max stood on the step, his hands in his jacket pockets.

I blinked. “You did forget something.”

“Not exactly. I was halfway down the street when it hit me,” he said in a quiet voice.

“What hit you?”

Max looked me in the eye.

“I didn’t want to go home yet.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Max

Quinn stepped aside. “Come in.”

I shouldn’t have come back.

The thought had been circling my mind since the moment I’d reached the corner at the end of the street. I could still see the house behind me then, Quinn’s doorway a rectangle of warm light, framing him.

I’d walked away anyway.

Thirty seconds later I’d stopped. Another ten seconds and I’d turned around.

Which meant something had already shifted.

This changes things.

I could have gone home. It would have been easy enough to leave the evening intact, the lines still mostly where I’d drawn them. Dinner. Conversation. A kiss at the door.

Containment.

Instead, I’d walked back, stood outside the house like an idiot for half a minute, and rung the bell again.

The truth was simpler than I wanted it to be.

I hadn’t wanted to leave him.

Sam appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I had a feeling we’d see you again.” His eyes twinkled. “I’d counted on more than five minutes between visits, though.”

Before I could come up with a suitably witty reply, Quinn grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the staircase. “Night, Sam.”

Sam’s chuckle followed us up the stairs.

At the top, Quinn pointed to another staircase, narrower this time. “My room is up there.”

I followed him, aware of voices and laughter below. Quinn’s family, the found variety.