POV — LEXI
"Then let me tell you something about family, Lexi. I've got four little brothers and sisters. And a story I've never told anyone at this club."
I look up from the cocoa. Noah isn't looking at me — he's looking at the highway, at the amber beads of light strung through the valley, and his face has gone somewhere else. Somewhere with a different zip code and a different decade.
"You don't have to," I say. "Trade a sad story for a sad story. That's not how it works."
"That's exactly how it works." He shifts his weight, and the vent housing creaks under both of us. "You showed me yours. Blown gasket, family edition. Fair's fair."
A laugh sneaks out of me — soggy, but real. "Okay. Show me yours, giant."
He's quiet for a second. Not the empty kind of quiet. The kind where a man
