(POV: Pheobe Thorne)
The motel bed creaks beneath us like it knows our secrets. Or maybe it's just tired of holding two people who don't know how to stop pretending.
The sheets are stiff, probably washed with the same indifference that folded them. The air smells like dollar store lemon cleaner and guilt. And yet... there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
Killian lies beside me, one arm bent behind his head, his body the shape of tension even in stillness. I trace the cracks in the ceiling, counting them like sins.
"One, two, three..."
"You're doing it again," he murmurs.
"Doing what?"
"Running from your head."
I tilt my face toward him. His profile is shadowed by the dim motel lamp. Every sharp line of his jaw, the soft pulse at his throat, the barely-there scar at the corner of his lip—it's a map I've memorized but still get lost in.
We haven't touched since this morning. Haven't kissed since we faked it in the gas station parking lot for a passing drone.
It felt too real.
