Silent Hearts | 18+

Chapter 6

Isla was still grinning as she crouched to feed the stray, her mint chocolate chip cone long gone, hair damp from the rain. She didn't look like someone with a snake for a boyfriend. Didn't look like someone who'd just been the subject of the kind of locker room talk that makes you want to break noses.

Jake's voice still rattled in my head, each word sharper than the last. If she knew what he'd said — the way he'd said it — she'd drop him on the spot. But I couldn't just throw that at her here, now, in the middle of an evening that had been... good.

When she straightened and brushed her hands against her skirt, I took a bite of my strawberry cone. Sweet. Cold. Pointless. Strawberry wasn't my thing, but Luna had this way of pulling me into things I didn't plan on — into her moments, whether I wanted to or not.

She smiled at me as we started walking again, her cardigan-wrapped shoulders brushing mine. "See? Feeding whiskers was worth getting caught in the rain."

"Not arguing," I said, though my mouth twitched.

We cut through the quiet street toward her house, puddles glinting under the streetlights. I could still feel the ghost of her under my arm, the way we'd fit under my cardigan like we'd been doing it for years.

"So," she said, light but deliberate, "you going to tell me what really happened with Jake, or should I just assume it was about... I don't know... your strawberry ice cream slander?"

My jaw tightened. "It's nothing."

"That's not an answer."

"It's all you're getting tonight, Luna."

She gave me a sideways look, like she could see straight through me. She probably could.

And God, I hated this — hated lying by omission. But Luna's stubborn. The more you tell her to stay away from someone, the more she'll dig her heels in, convinced she's proving a point. Push too hard, and she'll run straight into the fire just to prove she won't get burned.

And Jake... Jake was a fire she'd have to feel for herself.
If I told her what he said, she'd doubt me, defend him, twist herself in knots trying to explain it away — and it would only make him seem more important in her head. She needs to see him for who he really is, without me colouring it.

I wasn't protecting Jake. I was protecting her. And that meant letting her get there on her own, no matter how much it killed me to wait.

Isla sighed, her frustration clear. "Fine. Keep your secrets, Dwyers. But I'm not stupid. I know something happened."

I stopped walking, turning to face her. "Isa, I—"

Before I could finish, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, her expression softening as she looked at the screen.

"Jake," she muttered, almost to herself, then shot me a quick glance. "I should probably... you know."

I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth and nodded, fighting the urge to tell her to ignore him. To stay with me instead. But this wasn't my place. Not yet.