The ride home was supposed to be quiet.
It never was with Kael.
He lounged in the passenger seat of my car like he owned it, one hand hanging out the window, the other drumming on his thigh in an off-beat rhythm that always made me glance over—because he knew it would. The streetlights strobed across his face: warm gold, then shadow, then gold again.
"You're awfully quiet," he said, not looking at me but smiling like he could feel my irritation from a mile away.
"I'm tired," I muttered.
"Tired," he repeated, amused. "Or annoyed because I'm breathing too close to you again?"
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. "I said I'm tired."
He hummed, unconvinced.
Then his phone buzzed, and everything in the car shifted.
Because the name lighting up the screen—bright and bold—made my stomach tighten.
Sage.
Of course.
He grabbed the phone, thumb brushing the screen with an ease that made my teeth clench. "Hey, babe," he said casually.
Babe.
He didn't need to say it. He didn't need to say it like that. Soft. Warm. Different from the tone he used with me.
I stared straight ahead, jaw locked so tightly it hurt.
"No, I'm leaving now," he continued. "Yeah, I'll swing by after I drop her off."
Her.
Me.
He still talked about me like I was a task, an errand to run before moving on to the more interesting part of his night.
He laughed at something she said—a low, intimate sound I'd only ever heard when he was trying to get a reaction out of me. This time, it wasn't for me.
Jealousy wasn't a sharp, dramatic thing. It was dull, heavy. A quiet pressure under my ribs.
He hung up, tossing his phone onto his lap like the conversation hadn't carved into me.
"Sage wants to see me tonight," he said, stretching. "I told her I'd stop by for a bit."
I didn't respond.
He glanced at me. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine."
"I said I'm fine."
He smirked. "You always say that when you're lying."
I pulled into the lot outside our building, throwing the car into park a little harder than necessary. "Go inside," I said. "I'm locking up."
Kael didn't move.
Instead, he leaned back in his seat, turning his head just enough for his eyes to catch mine. There was something in his stare I couldn't decode—something sharper than his usual teasing.
"You don't like her," he said quietly.
My chest tightened. "I don't have to like her."
He tilted his head. "Then why don't you?"
I swallowed. "She's… not my type."
That made him laugh, a breathless, disbelieving sound. "Sage isn't your type? She has nothing to do with you."
Exactly, I thought bitterly.
Exactly the problem.
But I couldn't admit that. I couldn't say the real reason—because the real reason sat two feet away from me every day and breathed on my neck in libraries and made my pulse jump without permission.
"Kael," I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. "Please go inside. I'm really not in the mood."
He studied me for a moment. Not smirking. Not teasing. Just watching.
Then he finally got out, shutting the door softly instead of slamming it like he usually did.
I let out a shaky breath, resting my forehead on the steering wheel.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair that he looked at her that way. Or that he talked to her like she had a piece of him I didn't. Or that I wanted to be the one he called babe—wanted it so badly it made a painful, messy knot of emotions I had no right to feel.
Because he wasn't mine.
Kael Hart was my best friend.
And he belonged to someone else.