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“Ashford.” The name feels strange in my mouth, too intimate. “But you don’t need to do that. He’d think it was weird.”

“I think it would be gracious.” Mom moves to the stove, stirring something that smells like sage and onions. “What’s he like? This Lucien Ashford who dives into freezing rivers?”

And there it is: the question I’ve been dreading without knowing I was dreading it. What’s Lucien like? How do I answer that without revealing the way my stomach flips when I think of him?

“He’s…nice,” I say, and the word lands flat and insufficient. “Smart. He’s a business major, I think.”

“Handsome?”

The glass nearly slips from my hand. “What?”

Mom glances at me over her shoulder, her expression carefully neutral. “I’m just asking.”

“I don’t— I haven’t really noticed.”

“Mmm.” She turns back to the stove, but I can feel her attention still fixed on me, assessing me. “Well, he sounds like a good friend to have.”

“We’re not really friends. We just… We happen to have been at St. Silas together.”

“But he saved your life.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean—” I stop, frustrated by the trap I’m building around myself with words. “It was just instinct. Anyone would have done it.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Mom sets down her spoon and turns to face me fully. “Diving into freezing water takes courage. It takes caring. You must mean something to him, sweetheart.”

The kitchen suddenly feels too warm, too small. Angus whines softly and presses closer to my leg, as if sensing my discomfort.

“I should go unpack.”

Mom studies me for a long moment, and I have the terrible feeling that she can see straight through me, past all my careful deflections to the truth I’m not ready to name. But she just nods.

“Of course. Your room’s all ready.”

I grab my bag and escape upstairs with Angus trailing behind me. My room is exactly as I left it in the summer, the navy bedspread, the bookshelf crammed with paperbacks and rowing trophies, the desk positioned under the window overlooking the backyard. It should feel comforting, this unchanged space, but instead it reminds me of how long I’ve been away.

I drop onto the bed, and Angus jumps up beside me, resting his head on my thigh. I stroke his soft ears and try not to think about the way Mom said handsome, try not to think about the careful concern in her voice.

She knows, or she suspects, or maybe I’m paranoid, reading meaning into innocent questions.

I close my eyes and immediately wish I hadn’t because the image that rises behind my eyelids is the one I’ve been trying to suppress for three days: Lucien soaking wet and exhausted on the grass beside the river. Is that what you think this is?

I was freezing and in shock. Now, lying on my childhood bed with Angus warm and solid beside me, I let myself examine the memory more carefully. There’s no question that Lucien saved my life. Admitting that to myself means admitting I owe him something. Or, after all his manipulation and lies, are we even?

“Yes,” I say aloud, and Angus’s ears perk up. “Yes, we’re even.”

Is that what you think this is?

If it wasn’t to lure me into humiliating myself, if it wasn’t to hurt me, then what was it? I want it to mean something. I want to believe it was a desperate attempt to connect, to get close to me. Or maybe I’m just confused. Maybe when he pulled me back from the edge, maybe when I thought I was going to die and then I didn’t, maybe something in my brain rewired itself. Maybe I latched onto him because he was there. That’s a thing, isn’t it? Your body bonds to whoever saves you?

I sit up, dislodging Angus, and pace to the window. The backyard stretches out below, the grass brown with approaching winter, the trees bare. Ruby and Sawyer are nosing around the tree line, their golden coats bright against the dull landscape.

I press my forehead against the cold window glass and the words I’ve been avoiding voice themselves in my head: I want him.

The world doesn’t end. Lightning doesn’t strike. Angus doesn’t suddenly recoil in disgust. The words just hang there in my mind, terrifying and true.

Oh God, I want him, his body and his heart, and I want to give him all of me.

“Fuck,” I whisper to the window.