Page 205 of Irreversible

Are you busy tonight? I want to cook you dinner.

The bubbles stall out, disappearing. Rainfall sluices against the building, loudening when a gust of wind blows through. I sink deeper into the couch, waiting for a reply, feeling more vulnerable than I thought I would. This could just be sex for him—a familiar body to warm his bed, built on a fragile connection and a complicated history—but something tells me it’s more.

It’s in the way he held me, how my cheek melted against his chest as I dozed in his arms, how he opened up and shared more with me than I ever could have imagined. It’s in his promise to protect me—to take our captor’s life with his own hands.

He swore he’d kill him…for me.

His bubbles dance to life again.

Ten seconds. Fifty seconds. Two minutes.

He must be penning a dissertation.

And then my phone pings.

Isaac

K

I blink at the screen.

According to every relationship article ever written, that’s the universal code for “he’s just not that into you.” But with Isaac, I have no idea. He could show up at my door in twentyminutes for dinner, materialize in my bedroom at two a.m. for a quickie, or never speak to me again.

Huffing out a breath, I toss the phone beside me as Mr. Binkers hops off my lap and scurries into the kitchen. Regardless of Isaac’s intentions, I’m hungry, and I’m cooking.

I think back to a long-ago conversation in our side-by-side rooms when he mentioned he missed how his sister used to make him chicken pot pie, claiming it was “the only kind worth eating.” The memory softened the edges of his usually guarded tone, and I imagined the warmth he felt just thinking about it.

A smile tips my lips as I recall that day. It was a tiny light; a firefly in the dark. Truthfully, I think it was a defining moment for him—for both of us.

After discarding the candy and searching through the fridge, I place ingredients on the counter, my feet cool against the worn tile. Just as I grab a box of refrigerated pie crust, a knock sounds at the door. My fingers curl around the box, and I wonder if it could be Isaac—or someone else.

The Timekeeper is still out there, my mind screams.

It would be like him to knock.

But then a voice seeps through the door, settling my nerves. “It’s me.”

Blowing out a relieved breath, I pad across the apartment and pull open the door. Isaac hovers in the entryway, his hair wet and matted to his forehead, shoulder wedged against the frame as he drinks me in. I’m not exactly dressed to impress, wearing a form-fitting pink tank top and baggy white sweatpants, my hair braided over one shoulder. His eyes settle on the braid, a flicker of something dark and possessive lighting in his gaze, like he’s already imagining his fingers wrapped around it, tugging hard and using it as some kind of kinky noose.

Then he flits his attention to the box of pie crust pressed to the space between my breasts. “Lucky crust.”

My mouth ticks up with a smile as I step aside, allowing him entry. “I didn’t know if you were coming.”

“Said I was,” he says, sauntering through the threshold and rifling raindrops out of his hair.

“Your reply was noncommittal.”

“Was it?” He sniffs, his hands disappearing into the pockets of his damp blue jeans. “Guess I’ll spam you with a billion emojis next time.”

I close the door behind me and turn to face him.

We hold each other’s gaze for a suspended beat, and a wave of vulnerability washes over me. Isaac stands in my apartment, waiting for me to cook him dinner, and it feels…intimate. More so than the bevy of compromising positions we shared two nights ago, which seems illogical. Yet with every look, every touch, and every shared moment, the emotional connection between us deepens into something I’m struggling to fully understand.

Nervous energy sinks into me, shaking my words. “Um…you said you missed chicken pot pie.”

He frowns a little, glancing down at the box of crust dangling at my side. “You remembered that?”

A nod. “Sara used to make it.”

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