Episode 5

Hutton did not move away from the wall.

That was the first thing Eden noticed. He was big enough that the narrow restaurant hallway seemed to have been built around the fact of him, but he did not step toward her. He did not crowd her. He simply stood there, cap shadowing his eyes, jaw set like he had bitten down on words he did not trust himself to say.

Sophie touched Eden's elbow.

"I'm going to check on Harper," she said, which was Sophie's gentle way of asking, Do you want me to stay?

Eden should have said yes.

Instead, because the night had apparently decided she needed to make decisions with her pulse, she nodded.

Sophie gave Hutton a look that said exactly what would happen if he made this worse, then walked back toward the restaurant.

Silence settled in her wake.

Eden folded her arms. "If you're here to ask whether I need another towel, I'm dry this time."

Hutton's mouth did not twitch.

Not good.

"Miles Mercer," he said.

Two words. Cold enough to frost the hallway lights.

Eden's shoulders tightened. "What about him?"

"He's your ex."

"He called himself that. I corrected him."

"Did you?"

The question landed wrong.

Eden stared at him. "Excuse me?"

Something flickered behind the shadow of his cap. A warning, maybe. Or regret arriving too late.

"I heard him at the table," Hutton said. "I heard enough."

"Clearly not enough to understand it."

"Then explain it."

The command was quiet. That made it worse.

Eden stepped closer before she meant to. "You don't get to do that."

His gaze sharpened.

"Do what?"

"Stand there like I owe you a full relationship history because a guy with too much confidence embarrassed me at dinner."

Hutton's hands flexed at his sides.

"He upset you."

"Yes. And now you're helping. Badly."

That got him.

He looked away, jaw working once.

Eden should have stopped. She knew that. She could feel the thin place under his control, the part of him that had gone rigid when he saw her shaken. But hurt had teeth too, and hers had found something to bite.

"What exactly are you mad about?" she asked. "That Miles acted like he had a claim? Or that he might have had one before you ever learned my name?"

Hutton's eyes came back to hers.

Blue, clear, dangerous in the quiet.

"He doesn't have a claim."

Eden's breath caught.

The words should not have sounded like that. Like certainty. Like restraint with a hand around its throat.

"No," she said. "He doesn't."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yes."

A laugh broke out of her, sharp and disbelieving. "That is not an explanation."

"I don't have one."

"Then maybe don't interrogate me like you do."

He went still.

For the first time since she had stepped into the hallway, Eden saw the anger drop away from his face. Not vanish. Change. Turn inward, where it had probably belonged from the beginning.

"You're right," he said.

The apology was too simple. Too clean. It disarmed her more than if he had argued.

Eden looked toward the restaurant. Through the open archway, she could hear a burst of laughter, the clink of silverware, the careful performance of a dinner pretending not to have noticed anything.

She suddenly felt tired of being watched. Tired of being explained by people who did not know her. Tired of Hutton looking at her like he wanted to say something and then swallowing it until it came out wrong.

"Miles was almost something when I was sixteen," she said. "That is all. He liked the idea of being wanted by someone who didn't belong in his world. I liked the idea of being chosen. We were both young enough to mistake that for a story."

Hutton listened without moving.

"He ended it because my life was too practical for him," Eden continued. "Too much budget, too much family, too much real. Tonight he decided to make it sound bigger because there was an audience. That is what you heard."

Hutton's eyes lowered for one second.

"Did he hurt you?"

The question was quiet enough that it almost slipped under her defenses.

"Not in the way you're asking."

"In another way."

Eden looked at him. "Why do you care?"

There it was.

The thing under everything. Under the pool, the note, his stare across breakfast, the way he had kept her paper in his wallet like it mattered.

Hutton did not answer.

His silence made the space between them feel smaller.

Eden took one step closer.

"You keep looking at me," she said. "You say my name like you're mad at it. You kept my note. You show up in hallways with opinions about men you don't know." Her voice softened despite herself. "But you never say what you want."

His throat moved.

"Eden."

"No." She shook her head. "Don't say my name instead of an answer."

For a second, she thought he would retreat into that impossible stillness. That he would give her another clipped sentence, another half-truth, another careful nothing.

Instead, he reached up and took off his cap.

It was such a small thing. Ridiculous, maybe. But without the brim shadowing his eyes, he looked younger. More exposed. His dark hair was pushed back messily from practice, and his gaze met hers without armor.

"I want to know why you ran at me," he said.

Eden blinked.

That was not what she expected.

"Because I thought you were going to jump."

"No." His voice dropped. "Not the pool. Why me?"

Her heart stumbled.

The hallway seemed too warm suddenly.

"You looked lonely," she said.

Hutton's face changed.

Barely. A flicker. But she saw it. The words had found something.

"I was angry," he said.

"People can be both."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"You shouldn't have noticed."

"That's not how noticing works."

The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile.

Eden's courage, unreliable and badly timed, rose again.

"And now?" she asked.

"Now what?"

"What do you want now?"

Hutton looked at her mouth.

Only for a second.

But the hallway shifted.

Eden felt it in her palms, in the hollow behind her ribs, in the sudden awareness that there was no music here, no table, no Celeste, no Miles. Just Hutton standing too close and still not touching her.

"I want to kiss you," he said.

Her breath left her.

He did not move.

"But I don't know if you're asking me to," he added.

There it was again. That carefulness that kept undoing her. He had been cold five minutes ago, jealous and wrong and too quiet with it. But now he was standing in front of her with his desire in the open and his hands to himself.

Eden should have thought longer.

She did not want to.

"I am," she said.

Hutton's eyes searched hers.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Because if this is about Mercer—"

"It's not about Miles." She took the last step, close enough that the clean heat of him surrounded her. "Kiss me like you mean it, Hutton. Or don't look at me that way again."

For one heartbeat, he did nothing.

Then his hand came up, slow enough for her to stop him.

She did not.

His fingers touched the side of her neck, warm and callused, and Eden's eyes fluttered before she could stop them. He tilted her face up with a care that made her chest ache.

The first brush of his mouth was not hard.

It was worse.

Soft. Controlled. A question pressed against her lips.

Eden answered by gripping the front of his shirt and pulling him closer.

Whatever restraint he had left broke on a quiet breath.

Hutton kissed her again, deeper this time, and the world narrowed to his mouth, his hand at her neck, the wall at her back that she did not remember reaching. He tasted faintly of mint and heat. His body did not crush hers, but it surrounded her, one forearm braced beside her head, every inch of him held in check by choice.

That was what made her dizzy.

Not force.

Control.

The fact that he could take the whole hallway apart and instead only kissed her as if he had been waiting to be allowed.

Eden made a small sound into his mouth.

Hutton stopped immediately.

His forehead rested against hers. His breathing was uneven. So was hers.

"Too much?" he asked.

Her fingers were still twisted in his shirt.

"No."

His eyes opened.

"No?"

"No," she whispered. "Just... new."

Something soft moved through his face.

He eased back a fraction, though his hand stayed at her neck. "I can do new slowly."

That almost made her laugh. It came out shaky instead.

"You say that like it's a sport."

"Most things are."

"That explains a lot about you."

This time, he smiled.

Small. Real. Gone quickly, but not before it changed everything.

From the restaurant, someone called Hutton's name. Simon, probably. The sound broke through the quiet and reminded Eden that the world still existed beyond this hallway.

Hutton did not look away from her.

"Come watch me play," he said.

Eden's pulse had not recovered enough for conversation. "What?"

"For real. Not from a distance. Not because Lucas got you dragged into some resort thing." His thumb moved once against the side of her neck, then stopped, as if he had caught himself wanting more. "Come watch me."

"I don't understand football."

"You don't have to."

"What if I cheer at the wrong time?"

"Then I'll know where you are."

Her heart did something so soft and dangerous she almost hated him for it.

"That was smoother than your jealousy," she said.

"I know."

"You're admitting the jealousy?"

He put his cap back on, but the shadow did not hide him the same way anymore.

"I'm admitting I asked wrong."

Eden looked at him for a long second.

That mattered. More than the kiss, maybe. The correction. The fact that he could be wrong and not turn it into her job to make him feel right.

"Then ask again," she said.

Hutton's gaze held hers.

"Will you come watch me play, Eden?"

Behind him, the restaurant lights glowed warm and gold. Somewhere inside, Miles Mercer was probably still acting like he mattered. Celeste was probably collecting every scrap of gossip she could find.

For once, Eden did not care.

"Yes," she said.

Hutton's eyes dropped to her mouth one more time, but he did not kiss her again.

He only stepped back, giving her room to breathe.

That was how Eden knew she was in trouble.

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