Page 25 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
Then I pull my shirt on slow, breath rough.
Because some storms don’t break things.
Some storms reveal what was already cracked beneath the surface.
And I don’t know yet if this one’s done with us.
Not by a damn sight.
CHAPTER 9
EVIE
Islip out of the blanket like it might burn me.
The air is still. The kind of quiet that wraps around you too tightly, squeezing into your ribs until even breathing feels like a betrayal.
Aeron lies asleep on the sagging couch, one arm thrown over where I’d been curled. Hair a mess of silver across his forehead, brow soft and unguarded in a way I’ve never seen.
He doesn’t look like someone capable of breaking me.
Instead, he looks like someone who might’ve been broken once, and stitched himself back together with salt and silence.
And I know I can’t stay to watch him wake.
I grab my bag, boots, and camera.
The door creaks on the way out, and he doesn’t stir.
Just breathes slow. Steady. Trusting.
Like he knew I’d run, and didn’t want to stop me.
Liara’s studio smells like a thunderstorm wearing lipstick.
Turpentine and wax and something floral underneath—maybe the dried jasmine she always tucks in the windowsills like protection spells.
The place is chaos in color. Paint in every crevice, brushes like broken spears stabbed into coffee mugs. Murals crawl up thebrick walls, breathing with too many eyes, limbs curling around forgotten gods.
She doesn’t look up when I crash through the door.
“Didn’t expect you this early,” she mutters. “Or at all.”
“I left him on my couch.”
She pauses mid-stroke, glances up, smirks. “You say that like you kicked him there.”
“No. We talked. Slept. Just slept.” I slam down my bag. “Clothed. Adjacent. Emotionally exposed, which is frankly worse.”
Liara wipes her brush on her overalls and walks over, arms folded.
“Start at the beginning, Hot Mess Express.”
I sigh. Hard. “We didn’t mean for it to happen. It just... did. After the storm. He stayed.”
She raises a brow. “And?”
“And we didn’t even do anything. Just—talked. Fell asleep. Woke up.”
