Unfinished Business
559 Words
(Dorcas )
The chandelier flickered—one bulb trembling more than the others, like it knew something no one else dared to say. Gold shimmered off glass, reflections dancing in fractured patterns across marble floors, lace skirts, and guarded eyes.
Kade stood close. Almost too close. Like heat that didn’t ask permission. His shoulder hovered near mine, brushing once—then again—as if testing boundaries I wasn’t sure I had anymore.
Mara saw him, of course. Kade. Tall, composed, the kind of danger that didn’t yell. Her smile sharpened.
“A new friend?”
Kade didn’t blink. He turned slowly, expression unreadable, voice smooth as poured smoke.
“Something like that.”
His hand grazed the piano lid. A movement so casual it looked deliberate. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t need to.
“Seems your kind of fun has a very low bar,” he added, letting the words settle like dust.
“Maybe you should raise it.”
Mara’s jaw twitched, just once. Her eyes flicked to me, sharp and still. I didn’t offer her anything. Not a word. Not a breath.
Kade’s fingers found my waist. Not urgent. Not showy. Just there, like they’d always belonged. Heat pulsed through the silk of my dress, spreading slow and quiet up my spine.
I didn’t move.
Across the ballroom, Jude stood frozen. His drink hovered midair, ice pressed against crystal. His knuckles whitened. He was watching. Watching Kade’s hand. Watching me.
Mara inhaled, her perfume wrapping too tight.
“And who might you be?”
“Kade……Kade Brannon.”
The name dropped like a coin in still water—smooth, weighty, final.
Her lashes fluttered, a little too quickly.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “Dorcas usually prefers familiar company.”
Kade didn’t smile, but his voice curled like smoke.
“Familiar’s overrated. I go where the pulse is.”
Somewhere behind us, glass shattered. No one moved, but every head turned.
Jude’s didn’t.
He was still watching.
His eyes weren’t angry. Not exactly. They were something else—sharper, older.
Worried.
My mother looked at Kade. Her mouth curved—barely. “Still collecting projects, Dorcas ?”
Kade cut in before I could speak.
“She doesn’t collect people. People come to her.”
My mother’s smile didn’t falter, but something underneath it cracked.
“Is that so?”
Her gaze flicked to Jude, then back to me.
“I suppose some people never learn to finish what they start.”
The silence hit like a slap. Sharp. Stinging.
Kade’s hand didn’t move.
Jude did.
Just one step, measured, fluid. His glass lowered, the ice inside barely clinking. His eyes never left mine.
And in them—
Not jealousy, not possession, fear.
Not the kind that shouts. The kind that buries itself in your bones and waits for the collapse.
I held his gaze, steady, hollowed out and full all at once.
And for a second, the mask between us, years of silence, of maybe, almost, and what if—cracked.
He wasn’t asking.
He was begging.
Kade’s grip tightened. Barely. A breath. A heartbeat.
I didn’t move away.
My mother’s smile frayed at the corners. Mara watched like she’d missed a punchline.
And I—
I didn’t flinch, didn’t speak, I let them all watch.
And I let the mask stay shattered.
- Writer
