In the bathroom, the warm water poured over him, but it didn’t wash away the storm in his mind.
The truth about who he was.
The truth about his father.
The night in the woods.
And Sofia.
Her face surfaced in his thoughts uninvited—her eyes, her voice, the way she looked at him in the firelight. Then the kiss. Soft. Confusing. Real.
He frowned slightly.
I like her, a voice inside admitted.
The realization unsettled him. Sofia—the same girl who used to bully him at school. And yet… something had changed. Something deep and undeniable.
Miles away, Sofia stood beneath the spray of her own shower, eyes closed.
Luke’s face appeared in her thoughts just as clearly—his quiet intensity, his warmth, the way his lips had felt against hers. She pressed her forehead lightly against the tiled
