Chapter 12

Marie’s POV

A week later

Tristan and I fall into a rhythm I don't examine too closely — dinners, easy texts throughout the day, him showing up at the end of my sets with two waters instead of anything stronger, like he clocked exactly what he needed to learn about me and quietly adjusted. It's good. It's steady. I let myself have it without picking it apart for once.

***

I'm out back after my set, cooling off in the smoking area with a cigarette I don't really want, when Tristan finds me.

"You were good tonight," he says, leaning against the brick beside me. He hitches one shoulder against the wall, his hands tucked loosely into his jacket pockets. "Better than good."

"You say that every time."

"It's true every time."

I laugh, and he watches me do it with something warm and a little too focused in his eyes, and before I've fully registered the shif