Page 17 of Until You

His jaw ticks. The muscle jumps once, hard, and I watch it happen and think, absurdly, I kissed that jaw. I kissed it in the dark while rain hit the windows and his hands held me like I was something precious and not just a stranger.

“You expect me to believe this is a coincidence?” He follows me.

I spin to face him and plant one hand on my hip. Which would probably be more intimidating if I weren’t wearing a bath towel and fighting the urge to throw up on his boots.

“I expect you to stop talking like the villain in a soap opera and tell me why you’re in my house.”

“Our house,” he bites out.

I scoff. “Bold claim for a man who didn’t even leave me his name.”

Something flickers across his face. Quick and unguarded — the full version of that almost-smile, except in reverse. Something that looks, for one unprotected moment, like regret. It’s there and gone so fast I can’t be sure, but I feel the echo of it in my own chest, because I know that feeling. I’ve carried it for three months. “I seem to recall you were the one who made the no-name rule.”

Then he folds his arms over that broad chest. The movement pulls the black cotton of his T-shirt tight across his shoulders in a way that is deeply unhelpful to my current emotional state.

“Oliver.”

I blink again. “What?”

“My name. Oliver Blankenship.”

Well, shit. He is related to Mimz and Pops.

Also, it’s very annoying that his name is so damned attractive. It fits him in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Solid and old-fashioned and a little serious, like a name from a different era that landed on exactly the right man.

I lift my chin. “Cora.”

His gaze sharpens like the name means something now. Like hearing it rewrites every memory of that night with a new label, fills in the blank space where a name should have been.

“Cora,” he repeats slowly.

The way he says it—low, deliberate, tasting each syllable—sends a completely inappropriate shiver down my spine. It sounds different in his mouth than it’s ever sounded before. It sounds like something he’s going to keep. Tucked deep inside himself.

I hate that for me.

I hate how much I don’t hate it.

Then he says, “You need to start explaining.”

And I think:

So do you.

And maybe, very soon… I need to tell him he’s going to be a father.

But standing here in a towel with my hair dripping and his scent already filling up every corner of this house I’d foolishly started to think of as a little bit mine. I’d told myself that night was temporary, the man I’d sealed into a box labeled one night, no tomorrow. I realize now that the box was never sealed at all.

It’s been open this whole time.

And he just walked right through the door.