Page 112 of Gathered Sparkle

Fuck, I love this girl.

With a single fluid motion, I use my thumb as she suggested, and I release her wrist, Koen’s watch now spinning effortlessly between my fingers.

“You’re incredible, Ace,” Nova murmurs, the words hitting me harder than they should.

“Understatement of the century,” Sylus chimes in from somewhere behind her, but I barely register it.

Nova’s eyes never leave mine. “Told you he’s the best.”

Her pride in me is a weight and a gift all at once, settling in my chest and chasing away the years of feeling like a ghost, a half-formed version of myself.

With her looking at me that way, as though I’m more than my scars and my mistakes, I don’t simply feel alive again.

I feel whole.

And maybe even brave enough to become the man she already thinks I am.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Novalee

Ace’s touch lingers like an aftershock, the effortless display of skill still buzzing under my skin. The weight of it trails after me as we move back to the couch to eat, my mind still trying to catch up, still reeling from the way he tilts my world on its axis without even trying.

Good Lookin’ jumps up into Ace’s lap, a soft brush of warmth against my thigh.

The little traitor.

But as I reach out and stroke her fur, a scent fills my nose, and my focus shifts. The citrusy notes of bergamot wrap around me, clinging to Nicholas’s shirt like a phantom hug. The fabric brushes against my skin with every tiny shift I make, but it’s his scent that gets me.

Every inhale is him.

And then there’s the man himself, sitting across the room, chest bare and looking like he walked out of a goddamn fever dream. Nicholas Harrington is fine. Too fine. The kind that makes your chest clench and your mind race with thoughts you shouldn’t be having. He’s talking with Koen, his voice low, sending a shiver down my spine, and I forget to breathe.

Then, the guilt crashes in.

Sure, he’s helping us now, but that doesn’t mean we’re okay. The weight of what I did lingers between us, and I have no idea how to fix it. I keep hoping he’ll say something, give me a chance to explain, but every look he sends my way reminds me how far we’ve drifted.

At least there’s a difference in the way he talks to Koen. It’s guarded, of course it is, but there’s also an ease there. A flicker of the Nicholas I got to know, the one who doesn’t measure every word before he says it. It’s subtle, but I catch it, and I hope so much that even if I fucked things up with him, at least all of this brought him his best friend back.

“Hey, Trouble, you good?” Ace murmurs beside me, his voice pulling me from my thoughts. I glance over, and he’s already leaning in, pressing a quick kiss to my lips. It’s so sudden, so light, that my chest flutters.

“Hey,” I whisper as I smile at him. “I’m good, you?”

“I am.” He smiles back as his hand finds the small of my back, the warmth of his palm seeping through the thin fabric of the shirt and my clothes underneath. Today was a huge day for him on so many levels, and the fact that we’re here like this is a miracle.

When Ace nods and directs his gaze down at the cat, I turn my attention back to Nicholas, only to find his eyes already on me. The sadness in them is a punch to the gut, and before I can say anything, he looks away, focusing on Koen again.

“Girl,” Annabelle’s arm brushes mine as she murmurs in my ear. “What did you do to that guy?”

A lot.

“Why?”

“Because…” she says conspiratorially. “Whenever you’re not looking, he stares at you like a kicked puppy. Heliterallygaveyou his last shirt and doesn’t even want it back, even though he’s sitting there in all his glorious nakedness.”

“Belle…” I warn.

“I’m just saying,” she continues, unbothered. “It looks like you’re not treating him right. That is puppy abuse.”

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