Page 206 of Rising Heat

“Put it on,” I say.

Her eyes flick to me before dropping to the jacket in Tyler’s hand. She studies both of us for a second like she’s deciding whether this is worth arguing about, then slips it on.

The sleeves swallow half her hands, the hem falling nearly to mid-thigh over that damned dress, and Ty and I both can’t help but watch as she tucks her fingers into the cuffs and curls deeper into the collar.

She looks down at herself.

“I feel like a little kid.”

Tyler laughs.

“You look comfortable.”

“I am.”

She says it absentmindedly, smoothing one hand over the sleeve.

“…Which is probably dangerous.”

She says it almost to herself.

“You wearing our clothes?”

“I think we’re past that, Trouble.”

“No,” her smile softens. “Comfortable.”

Tyler scoots closer to her.

“That wasn’t really about the jacket.”

Ty reaches for her hand and runs a thumb along her knuckles while we wait for her to finish.

“The last time I got comfortable, I looked up one day and realized I’d built my whole life around somebody else’s.”

Tyler doesn’t answer right away. Neither do I.

One sentence and the alarm bells start going off in my head as I’m playing the whole night backwards.

Is that what this looks like to her?

Like we’re already folding her into our lives before she’s had the chance to decide what she wants hers to look like?

“Nobody’s asking you to,” Tyler says too easily.

She nods and I let it drop.

But my head doesn’t.

Traffic builds up along Commonwealth while we walk home, the city finally starting to ease off now that the dinner crowd’s thinning out. Somewhere near Marlborough, Darcy drifts back into the space between us without either of us asking, Tyler’s jacket hanging nearly to her knees now while one hand stays tucked inside the sleeve wrapped around mine.

Every few steps she gives our joined hands a lazy swing, laughing at something Tyler’s saying about the station, and I catch myself looking at her again.

The thought from dinner is still sitting in the back of my head.

Don’t build your life around somebody else’s.

I wonder if she’s still thinking about it too.