Chapter 2 The Past Has a Keycard

The walls were too thin.

Zara pressed her pillow tighter over her ears, but it didn't block the sound of Jace's laugh from the room next door. Low. Warm. Intimate. She hated that her body still reacted to it-tight stomach, racing heart, the memory of his breath on her neck playing traitor.

"Focus," she muttered, eyes on the textbook that hadn't moved in twenty minutes. She flipped a page just to pretend.

A soft knock on her door broke the silence.

She opened it halfway, ready to snap. But it wasn't Lia.

It was him.

Jace, shirt slightly wrinkled, holding a small carton of takeout. "Peace offering?"

She crossed her arms. "You think noodles erase two years of silence?"

He looked down. "No. But I didn't come to erase anything, Zara. I came to rewrite it."

Damn him.

She let him in.

They sat on her bed in silence. The noodles stayed untouched. The tension didn't.

"I didn't want to leave," he finally said. "My mom got sick. I couldn't stay. I didn't know how to explain that without sounding like an excuse."

"You left me a playlist," she whispered.

Jace winced. "It said what I couldn't."

She turned to face him fully. "You should've said goodbye."

"I didn't want it to be goodbye."

They stared at each other.

And in that second, nothing else existed. Just two broken hearts trying to beat in sync again.

When she leaned in, their lips barely brushed-hot, hesitant. Then she pulled back.

"Don't make me regret letting you in."

"I won't," he said, already regretting every moment he'd spent without her.