The words hung between us, soft but steady, like he hadn’t just spoken them but etched them into me. I do.

I blinked, my throat closing around air that refused to move. Outside, neon lights smeared across the glass in fractured streaks, the city alive with noise and urgency, but inside the car, everything was still. His gaze pinned me there, unraveling knots I’d tied so tightly I thought they’d fused into my bones.

“You shouldn’t,” I whispered, though my voice cracked in the middle, a betrayal of how badly I wanted him to.

His hand flexed on the steering wheel, the faintest movement, like he was fighting himself. “And...