(Michelle POV)
The engine hummed low and steady as Steven drove, city lights sliding past us in blurred gold streaks like lazy comets. The road was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that carried weight — that suspicious, almost sacred stillness that felt like the universe itself had paused just long enough for something irreversible to happen.
And somehow, I knew.
This wasn't just another ride home.
I sat in the passenger seat trying very hard not to smile like I was twelve and had just been confessed to by my fictional crush under a cherry blossom tree.
Be normal, Michelle.
But oh.
My heart had not signed that contract.
The night still lingered on my skin — the warmth of the bar, the laughter, the soft heaviness of alcohol not clouding my mind but loosening something inside me. Steven's presence beside me felt stronger now. Colder air. Sharper awareness. The quiet aftermath after noise.
It was intimate.
Dangerously so.
