The house felt different.
I couldn’t explain it, but the walls seemed heavier, the air thicker, as though some unseen hand had pressed shadows into the corners. Damien hadn’t said anything, but I caught it in the way his jaw clenched when his phone buzzed, the way his eyes lingered too long at the window as if expecting ghosts to walk up the driveway.
I stretched across the couch, pretending to be unbothered, pretending not to notice the tension bleeding into him. But I wasn’t stupid. Something was happening.
“Are you going to tell me,” I asked lazily, twirling a strand of my hair, “or are you going to keep pacing like a caged animal until the floorboards wear thin?”
His eyes flicked to me, sharp, unreadable. “It’s nothing.”
A laugh slipped past my lips, light but cutting. “Nothing al
