Chapter 6. Why Do You Smell Like Him?

Tessa’s POV

I don’t sleep.

I lie in the dark until four in the morning, waiting for the voice to come back. It doesn’t. Not when I say my own name. Not when I whisper hello to the ceiling like an idiot. Not when I press both hands flat against my chest and beg.

It stirs only once.

At 4:12 a.m., my phone lights up on the nightstand.

BRAYDON: You awake, Lucky?

And something inside my ribs stretches, slow and pleased, like a cat rolling into a patch of sun.

I turn the phone face down and don’t answer.

I don’t answer the next one either, at 7:03, which just says BRAYDON: Send me your schedule. I need to know where to find my girlfriend.

By the time I slip into the lecture hall for Macroeconomics, the gold in my eyes is gone. I checked four times in the bathroom mirror. Brown. Ordinary, boring, wolfless brown.

Maybe I imagined it. Maybe a breakup, a sleepless night, and the best kiss of my life add up to a v