Chapter Four

Sloane’s POV

I woke determined to put space between us.

The decision felt solid in the morning light. Whatever had passed in the car the night before—the locked doors, the unfinished reach of his hand, the sharp twist of jealousy when I heard him speaking with our mothers—needed to end before it grew teeth. Jasper was temporary. The connection between our families was not. I dressed, went downstairs, and built a careful routine of absence: early walks, closed bedroom door, polite but brief answers whenever he entered a room.

It lasted less than a day.

Jasper adapted without comment. When I carried boxes of old textbooks to the...