Keira
The parking lot went completely silent, the kind of silence that felt loud in its own way, pressing in from every direction while I tried to figure out how to respond to something I'd been quietly circling in my own head for weeks without ever letting myself say the word out loud.
"Ryder—"
"You don't have to say anything back," he said quickly, already backpedaling, some of the fear from a moment ago sharpening into something closer to panic. "I shouldn't have said that. Not after everything that happened at dinner. Not when Jaxon's right there thinking I've had some kind of unfair advantage this whole time."
"Stop," I said, and he did, immediately, watching me with the same guarded uncertainty I'd seen the very first night I interviewed him, before any of this had started. "Let
