Elaine
By the time I pulled into the driveway, my stomach was a tangled mess of nerves. The kind that made you feel like you’d swallowed a handful of gravel and chased it with lukewarm coffee. I hadn’t done anything wrong—at least, not intentionally—but the thought of talking to Kave made my pulse skitter like a trapped moth. Rose had seen me with Bran. That much I knew. What I didn’t know was what she’d told Kave.
I’d tried to be polite to her, even friendly, despite the way she looked at me like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe. But apparently, that hadn’t stopped her from jumping to conclusions. The meeting with Bran had been innocent. Lunch. That was it. But Rose had a way of twisting things, and I could only imagine the version she’d spun for Kave.
As I sat in the car, en
