Page 24 of Hymns of the Broken
He reads. His jaw goes hard. “This is supposed to be your boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
He huffs a humorless breath. “Great. I get a name-drop and zero royalties.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. “He always thinks everyone’s looking at me—trying to take me from him.”
Jasper gives me a look, a softer edge to the smirk. “Maybe he’s not wrong this time.”
My stomach knots. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve consumed me since the second I saw you,” he says, voice soft like he’s telling me a secret.
The words land too deeply.
“What?You don’t even know me,” I whisper.
“I know that you’ve been invisible so long,” he murmurs, his breath grazing my ear, “you don’t think anyone actually sees you, but I do.”
His voice drips down my spine. My throat works trying to swallow as I change the subject.
“He said I’m not good enough. That the job will ruin me.”
“Then he’s blind and boring.” Jasper types something into my phone and hands it back facedown like it’s garbage. “Darklight doesn’t hire just anybody.”
The tightness around my chest loosens another notch.
He bumps my knee. “We can keep talking, or I can deploy a truly terrible song as a distraction.”
“Please don’t.”
“Copy that.” His mouth tilts. “My number is in there now. Just call or text if you need me and I’ll come right back.”
The curtain falls and the bunk exhales with me.He sees me.Maybe I was wrong about him…
My phone is warm in my palm, his name sitting there like a lifeline instead of a leash. I can still feel the ghost of his thumb on my arm, the bump of his knee, the way his voice gentled around the truth. It flares in my chest—heat that isn’t panic, light that isn’t interrogation. Maybe I’m not a problem to manage.
The bus hums. My lungs remember how to work. I tuck the phone under my pillow like a secret and stare at the sliver of light at the curtain’s edge, counting the beats between now and the next breath.
JASPER
I ease the curtain closed and stand there a second, palm on the fabric like it’s the only thing between me and walking back in. Her breathing’s steady now. Mine isn’t. I can still feel the ghost of her pulse under my thumb, the tremor that leveled out because I asked it to. Because she let me in.
“This is supposed to be your boyfriend?”
Boyfriend.
I saw the lines in her eyes when she handed me the phone—shattered glass and grit. He knew exactly where to press.Shouldn’t have left. This job will ruin you. If you let him touch you…
My jaw clicks. I breathe through it. I didn’t push. I didn’t crowd. I counted her breaths and she matched mine, and when she said don’t go, I stayed. When she wanted a distraction, I offered a bad song and a better question. When she handed me the truth, I didn’t gloat—I gave her my number and promised to come back if she asked. No judgment.
Who even was I back there?
I don’t comfort people. Maybe, it’s because it was her? I had every intention of getting in her bunk and making her sweat. Of forcing myself under her skin, the way she’s gotten under mine. But that changed when I saw the look in her eyes…
She had to of felt it—I know I did. That thick, silent pull between us.
My footsteps are slow. Each step is a leash I’m tightening around my throat. Because turning around—going back in there and finishing what I started? It’d be easy. Too fucking easy.
