“—hate to ruin her expectations for all other men—”

Yeah. They’re not listening.

I carry their still-arguing voices into my living room, opening the peephole and peering out into the hall to see who in the hell could be coming by this late.

I almost drop my phone when I see who’s on the other side. I’m so surprised that I forget I’m actively on a call, wrenching the door open with entirely more force than necessary.

“What are you doing here?”

Ezra leans against my door, one arm propped against the frame as his long body fills the open space. He’s still dressed for work—fitted, navy blue slacks that hug him in all the right places and a matching jacket that’s tailored just right over a white button-down with the collar undone—and it’s really unfair that he could look so good in his work clothes. Seeing him again for the first time since the party is like an actual blow; I can feel the air rushing out of me just as my heart starts to race.

“Hey,” he says casually, as if it’s completely normal for him to be standing outside my door. “Can I come in?”

“What are you doing here?”

He arches one golden brow, his lips twitching. “You already asked me that.”

“Normally, when someone asks a question, the other person answers them the first time.”

He sighs, running his fingers through his hair. “I’d be perfectly happy to talk about it.” He looks down the hall on either side of him. “Maybe just not out here.”

Before this past weekend, I would have shut the door on him. We don’t do things like this—surprising each other at home. Or at least, we didn’t. I don’t really know what we do now. It leaves me slightly addled. Maybe that’s why I move to the side to let him in.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, stepping past me as I close the door behind him.

I remember much too late what I’d been doing before he knocked.

“Shit,” I mutter, bringing my attention to my now suspiciously quiet cell. “Guys, I need to call you back.”

“Is that Ezra?”

“Is he at your place?”

“I thought you were done fucking him?”

“Does this mean you—”

I can’t even tell who’s asking what, with the way they’re talking over each other. I know I’m going to have a lot of questions to answer when I see them again. That’s a problem for tomorrow’s Dani.

“Okay, talk soon,” I say loudly into the phone, hanging up on both of them mid–barrage of questions.

Ezra has already made himself at home on my couch, his head leaned back against the cushions and his eyes closed. I walk around the couch in a daze, watching him trace idle patterns into the microfiber material.

“You still haven’t answered me,” I say finally.

His eyes open lazily, and I notice how tired he looks. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his usual frustrating air of playfulness is nowhere to be found.

“Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to see you?”

My heart does a strange flip-flop maneuver in my chest. I open my mouth, then close it, then open it again—realizing I look like a goldfish as my neck heats. “Why?”

“You know,” he chuckles, “I honestly couldn’t tell you. I had a shitty day, and for some reason, the idea of coming over here so you could most likely lay into me about whatever asshole thing I’ve done today sounded like a nice change of pace.”

There’s a flash of guilt that passes through me at his casual admission, one I brush away just as quickly as it comes. It isn’t my fault Ezra is such an insufferable ass almost one hundred percent of the time.

I stare at him for a moment, his bronze skin practically glowing in the soft light of the lamp on my end table, all too aware of the fact that the last time he was on my couch, he was inside me. I cross my arms over my chest, my nipples pebbling under the faded University of Texas T-shirt I like to sleep in. His eyes sweep down the length of me—goose bumps erupting over every bit of skin they pass over.

Something about the haunted look in his eyes makes it impossible for me to resort to my usual tactics of keeping him at arm’s length. Add that to the confusing encounter at my parents’ party last weekend that I still haven’t sorted through completely, and maybe it could almost explain why I sink down onto the couch only a foot away from him. Still trying to keep my distance.

“Why did you have a shitty day?”

He looks as surprised by the question as I am to have asked it. His eyes widen a fraction, his lips parting, and he studies my face for a beat before answering, “The same reason for all my shitty days.”

It’s a cryptic answer, one I can tell he doesn’t want to elaborate on. Weirdly, that makes me want to push him. To force the answers out of him. Whether that’s because of the desire he sets off in me to win or genuine concern, I can’t be sure.

“Gonna have to give me more than that.”

His lips purse as he turns his head to scrub his hand down his face, his palm lingering on his jaw as he considers. “Family drama. I promise it’s nothing you want to hear about.”

“What, are we not getting along with dear old daddy Alexander?”

His laugh is humorless. Dark, even. “There’s nothing dear about Alexander Hart.”

That gives me pause. Sure, I’ve never heard Ezra mentioning his dad, but I mean, they work together. There’s nothing to suggest there’s bad blood between them.

“You’d think he’d be over the moon with all the cases you’re always winning for him.”

Ezra’s lips twitch. “So you are acknowledging my win rate now?”

“Abstractly,” I answer flatly. “Without any interest whatsoever.”

“Of course not,” Ezra murmurs with actual humor now. He eyes me from the side, the amused look fading over the course of the next few seconds, his eyes losing focus as he seems to get lost in his thoughts. “Do you ever feel like…” He shakes his head. “Forget it. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

For reasons I can’t fathom, I am infinitely curious about whatever he was about to ask me.

“No,” I urge. “What? Do I ever feel what?”

“Like…” Ezra sighs, letting his head drop to the back of the couch. “Like you’re just going through the motions? Like nothing you do matters because everything is always going to be just as shitty tomorrow as it was today?” He huffs out another blast of air that I think is supposed to be a laugh but comes out like more of a scoff. “Like your entire life has already been decided, and there’s nothing you can do about it?”

His questions leave me gaping, his voice raw and pained and unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him. It makes me feel unsettled, with no idea how to answer. Especially since I know exactly what that feels like. It’s a feeling that’s been embedded in my bones since I was seventeen years old, sitting across from my parents and hearing that my whole life was a lie, and it was entirely my fault. It’s a feeling that was solidified only a few short years later when I realized that the only person you can count on is yourself.

But I can’t tell him any of that. Even with the way things have…shifted between us, I can’t bring myself to be that vulnerable with him. Even if he’s choosing to do so with me. I’m in unfamiliar territory here. I don’t know what to do with a vulnerable Ezra, which is exactly how he seems right now.

“This is about your father?”

“My father,” he snorts. “God. My father…” He shakes his head, and I have the strangest urge to reach out, to soothe him. It’s confusing as hell. “Everything comes back to him.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, simply because I have no idea what else to say.

He shakes his head again. “No, I’m sorry. I’m sure this isn’t at all what you’d like to be doing right now. Especially with me. I just…Today was such a goddamned nightmare, and I just needed…something that felt normal.”

My heart trips in my chest. I ignore it.