Julia stepped outside before she could talk herself out of it. The cold night air wrapped around her, sharp enough to sting. Brandon stood beneath the lone streetlamp like he’d been carved out of shadow and stubbornness, rain dripping from the ends of his hair. His clothes were simple—dark jacket, worn boots—but on him, simplicity looked like defiance.
“You came,” he said softly, as if the possibility he might lose her had weighed on every minute since she left.
Julia swallowed hard, her voice stuck somewhere between longing and fear. Before she could answer, a faint scrape sounded behind her. She turned just in time to see the curtain in her mother’s bedroom window fall back into place. Watching. Judging. Measuring.
Brandon followed her gaze and smiled faintly. “You didn’t tell me your
