Page 32 of Without a Trace
It was too quiet.
The kind that made you feel every breath, every shift of water, every look that lingered a second too long. The second they left, something in the stillness changed.
Trace leaned back against the far edge of the hot tub, arms stretched along the rim, tension humming off him like heat. Alden rubbed his wrist, shifting closer to me, but not by much. Just enough that his knee grazed mine and didn’t move away.
And I was drunk. Hot. Floating in a mess of my own making.
Fuck it.
Let them want me.
Let me want them.
I tilted my head to Alden. “What was your first impression of me?” I asked, voice sweet but slicing.
He blinked. “In high school?”
“Yeah,” I said, resting my chin on my hand like I had all the time in the world.
He smiled. “You were trouble.”
“That’s not an impression. That’s a fact.”
“I thought you were fire. Like someone who’d set things on fire just to feel the heat.”
I looked at Trace. “And you?”
He didn’t speak for a long moment.
“You were loud that day at the lake,” he said. “Not your voice—just everything else. You walked toward me, and it was like… everything else faded.”
A shiver crawled down my spine And I looked between them, amused and aching.
“Why didn’t either of you ever say anything?”
Alden looked away.
“We wanted you happy,” Trace said.
“And now?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Now it’s too late to stop.”
I laughed. Soft. Dangerous. Daring someone to break first.
I wasn’t trying to be cruel.
But maybe I wanted to be seen. Maybe I wanted to be chosen.
Or maybe… I just wanted to watch them fall.
And they were falling.
Hard. I could feel it.
Whatever this was—it started long before tonight.
