No One Else

SLOANE

The car was quiet in the aftermath.

Not truly quiet. The engine ticked softly as it cooled. Wind moved through the trees beyond the lookout. Somewhere far below us, the city glowed in blurred gold smudges through the fogged windows. My breathing was still uneven. So was his.

But compared to the chaos that had just lived inside this car, it felt quiet enough to hear everything that mattered.

I lay half-curled against the seat, wrapped in Chase’s hoodie because at some point he had pulled it over my shoulders without making a joke about it. My pants were back on. Barely. My hair was a disaster. My body felt boneless in the dangerous way that happened after too much adrenaline, too much wanting, too much of him.

Chase sat beside me with one arm draped over the back of the seat, his other hand resting loosely on my thigh like it belonged there.

That was the worst part.

Not the touching.

The ease of it.

Like we had crossed some line so completely there was no point pretending otherwise.

I stared at the windshield. “This is a terrible idea.”

His thumb moved once against my leg. Slow. Thoughtful.

“Yeah,” he said.

I turned to look at him.

No grin. No teasing. No lazy arrogance to hide behind.

Just Chase, hair wrecked, mouth swollen, eyes darker and more honest than I was prepared for.

“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s your analysis?”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “You want a PowerPoint?”

“I want you to at least pretend this is not completely insane.”

“I think we passed pretending somewhere around the appetizer course.”

Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.

It came out softer than I intended, frayed at the edges, and something changed in his face when he heard it. Not amusement. Not victory.

Something warmer. More careful.

That scared me more than anything else tonight.

I looked away first and tugged the sleeves of his hoodie over my hands. It smelled like him. Clean soap, cold air, the darker scent underneath that my body had started recognizing too quickly.

“We should go back,” I said.

“Do you want to?”

No.

The answer rose instantly, traitorous and true.

No, I did not want to go back to the house where the walls were thin and the kitchen still smelled like pie and our parents were probably watching TV in their room like normal people. I did not want to sit across from him at breakfast tomorrow and act like I did not know exactly how his mouth felt on my skin. I did not want to go back to pretending this was only chemistry, only secrecy, only reckless appetite.

Because tonight had tilted.

I could feel it.

That was the problem.

“I want,” I said slowly, “to be a different person than the one currently in this car.”

He was quiet for a beat.

Then, “Too late.”

I shot him a look. “That was not comforting.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” He shifted toward me, his hand sliding higher on my thigh, not pushing, just there. Present. “Sloane.”

The way he said my name made me still.

I had heard Chase say my name a hundred different ways by now. Mocking. Arrogant. Low and filthy. Soft in the dark when he forgot to hide.

This was different.

Steadier.

Like he had decided something.

“I need you to listen to me for a second,” he said.

Every alarm in my body went off at once.

That tone. That quiet certainty. That lack of armor.

I knew before he said anything else that whatever came next would matter too much.

So naturally, I panicked.

“That sentence never ends well.”

His mouth twitched, but only a little. “Still. Listen.”

I should have interrupted. I should have made a joke. I should have opened the passenger door and thrown myself dramatically into the November night.

Instead I stayed.

Because of course I did.

Because I always stayed.

Chase drew a breath and looked at me like he was trying to decide how honest he could afford to be.

Then apparently decided the answer was all the way.

“I’ve hooked up with people before,” he said.

I blinked. “Wow. Stunning revelation. Alert the press.”

“Sloane.”

I shut up.

He kept his eyes on mine.

“There’s never been anyone I couldn’t walk away from.”

The air in the car changed.

Just like that.

No grand speech. No dramatic music. Just one sentence dropped between us like something fragile and dangerous and impossible to take back.

I stared at him.

He went on before I could stop him.

“There’s never been anyone I thought about like this. Not after. Not before. Not in the middle of class, not on the ice, not when I’m trying to sleep, not when I’m with my friends, not when I’m supposed to be doing literally anything else.” His jaw tightened. “There’s never been anyone who gets under my skin the way you do.”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

He looked down at my hands swallowed by his sleeves, then back at my face.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” he said quietly. “Not even close.”

“Don’t,” I whispered.

His expression changed instantly. “Don’t what?”

“Say things like that unless you mean them.”

His face went still.

“Sloane.” He leaned in until I had no choice but to look at him again. “I mean them.”

I hated how much I wanted to believe him.

I hated even more that I couldn’t.

I pulled back, just enough to put space between us again.

“You still fucked other girls,” I said. The words tasted like ash. “Or puck bunnies. The weeks we were apart.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

“Yeah,” he said. “Multiple.”

That was all I needed to know.

“Right.” I turned toward the window so he wouldn’t see the tear that slipped free. “That’s all I need to know.”

The drive back from the lookout was quiet in the ugliest possible way.

Not peaceful.

Not resolved.

Just full of everything we weren’t saying.

He drove with both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.

I sat folded into the passenger seat in his hoodie, staring out at the dark, my own words replaying in my head like a punishment.

*You still fucked other girls or puck bunnies the weeks we were apart?*

And then his answer.

*Yes. Multiple.*

It should not have hurt.

That was the humiliating part.

We were not dating. We were not official. We were not even sane.

And still it had landed like a blade slid carefully between ribs.

I kept my face turned toward the window because I knew exactly what would happen if I looked at him.

I would either start crying or say something cruel, and I had already done enough damage for one night.

The house was dark except for the low warm light over the stove when we got back.

Victoria and Dad had gone upstairs. The dishwasher hummed in the kitchen. A pie plate sat covered in foil on the counter like evidence of the normal family holiday we had apparently attended between all the terrible choices.

Chase killed the engine.

For one second neither of us moved.

Then I reached for the handle.

“Sloane.”

I froze but did not turn around.

His voice had none of the heat from earlier. None of the careful confession from the lookout either.

Just exhaustion.

“You asked,” he said quietly. “I told you the truth.”

I swallowed.

“Congratulations.”

The word came out sharper than I intended.

I got out before he could answer.

I made it upstairs, shut my bedroom door, and stood there in the dark with my back against it, breathing like I had sprinted the whole way.

Then I pulled his hoodie off, dropped it on the chair, and cried into the heels of my hands like a complete idiot.

Not because he had lied.

Because he hadn’t.

That was somehow worse.