The rest of dinner isn't as intense as I thought it would be. No one brings up the argument or Briar's performing past again. Just polite conversation from the moment Briar and I sit at the table. But once dinner is done and Gareth finishes his fair share of cleaning up, he mutters some excuse about being tired. He quickly kisses Thera's and Briar's cheeks and tells me and Marlowe good night. He hesitates before nodding at his dad without really looking at him. Briar narrows her eyes as she watches him stalk upstairs, but she doesn't ask questions. Not even when she catches Everett watching Gareth with an unreadable expression. She just settles back on the couch with her laptop and starts reading again.

I settle on the couch with her and get lost in another chapter. Our process is slow, so we're not even halfway through when Marlowe leaves and the rest of Briar's family head up to bed. It probably takes another half an hour after that for us to finish the chapter.

"Do you want a ride home?" Briar yawns, stretching her arms above her head.

"Maybe later," I say, stretching, too.

Briar props her head up, resting her elbow on the back of the couch. "Isn't it a little late? Even for you? Your parents will worry, won't they?"

I check the time on my phone. It's a little after nine, but I've come home later this summer. Just in case, I text Nanay that she probably shouldn't wait up for me. I'll still get lectured about not spending enough time at home helping out with chores or something like that even with the Internship Excuse, but that can wait.

"Problem solved," I say, dropping my phone on the couch.

"If you're sure." Briar runs a hand down her face. "But there's nothing for you to do. We already read two chapters today."

I swallow, giving Briar a meaningful look. "Maybe we can watch more videos from Sarina's YouTube channel."

Briar's head snaps up. The dim light of the lamp glints off her eyes as she frowns at me. "Why?"

"Because I love listening to your voice."

Her cheeks darken as she blushes. "Thanks..."

I smile. "So can we?"

Her jaw tenses and her eyes darken as she stares at the wall across the room. Her eyes change color from amber to dark brown and back as she thinks it over. In the end, she lets out a breath and nods. "But I get to pick the videos."

Whatever gets her to let me watch them. It takes her a while to choose one, but once she does, she keeps tensing and glancing at me whenever she sings or dances or acts or plays an instrument in the video. I make sure to smile at her every single time, but even when she's not looking at me and I'm not focused on the video, I smile at her. What's there not to smile about when I'm sitting with someone so breathtaking?

After the fourth video, Briar turns off her screen. Damn... Guess she's reached her limit. But at least I got a good dose for my Briar addiction. And it really is an addiction now.

I take a look at Briar, and I have to smile at how hard she's blushing right now. No wonder she finds every opportunity to tease me. It's entertaining as hell. And with her, it's absolutely adorable, especially considering what a force of nature she is any other time.

She looks down at her lap, tucking her hair behind her ear. It untucks itself almost immediately, and I feel the urge to fix it for her. I have to grit my teeth to stop myself, gripping the couch cushions.

"What?" Briar asks.

I realize she's looking at me, and now all I can focus on is her eyes. I think it occurs to me for the first time how attractive they are. All the time. Not just when they're in a certain light. And now her eyes are directed right at me.

"Nothing," I say. "Just thinking."

She shifts, so she's facing me. "About what?"

Her. Her eyes. A million other things that involve Briar. But nothing I can say without making things weird. Especially if she's not feeling what I'm feeling.

"Nothing," I say. "Just that you're talented."

Briar inhales and looks away. She looks back at me just as quickly and blurts, "Thank you."

I blink at the urgency in her voice. "You're welcome."

She shakes her head. "No. Not for the compliment. I mean, thank you for smiling at me every time I looked at you. It made me feel like I wasn't terrible."

I let out a breathy laugh. "Of course, you weren't terrible. I don't even know how you could think that."

Briar clasps her hands in her lap and looks down. "Well... it's—" complicated "—a long story."

Wait, what? I do a double-take. Is that an invitation to ask for more information? She's never told me that it's a long story as a dismissal. It's always if it's complicated that she doesn't want me to ask questions. So...

"I have time if you want to tell me," I say.

She meets my eyes, and I'm stuck between wanting to look into her eyes forever and wanting to glance away in case looking back at her comes off weird. But looking away might make her think I don't care, so I maintain eye contact, watching her study me. The longer I look back, the more glad I am about it because I get to see her expression change. From steely to doubtful to nervous to determined.

Briar looks down at the couch. "Well... the last play I was ever part of, I was Sarina's understudy for the lead role. Which made sense. Sarina's almost always the lead because she's just that good. You saw that for yourself in the videos."

I shrug. "Sure. She's great, but I still prefer to watch you."

Briar's face turns a deeper shade of red, but other than that, she ignores the compliment. "For the last play, Sarina got sick right before opening night, but it was fine because I knew all the lines, blocking, choreography, musical numbers, everything. And I was excited because I never got to be the lead before.

"But while I was getting ready, I overheard Myron—you saw him in some of the videos—say that I would mess up and ruin the show."

"What the fuck?" I blurt, sitting up.

Briar's eyes widen at my reaction. When she gets over the surprise, she laughs softly. She threads her fingers through her hair, gripping it as she rests her arm against the back of the couch. "Yeah... That's what I think now, but at the moment, all I could do was agree with him. Because that's the reason why I never got the lead. I wasn't horrible, but I wasn't the best either. I knew that. It probably wouldn't have bothered me as much as it did if he didn't start going into detail about how I couldn't hit the high notes like Sarina or my movements weren't graceful enough or I wasn't as expressive as I could've been."

She swallows, picking at a loose thread on the couch. "It's not even like that was the only time he said things like that to me. Even when we weren't doing anything for shows and I was just playing an instrument, singing, or dancing for fun, he would always have something to say about it. So hearing him say all that opening night and remembering all his comments..." Briar shakes her head, a humorless laugh escaping her. "Threw me off..."

She shuts her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. Her eyebrows furrow like just recalling the rest of the memory is giving her a migraine. But she tells me anyway: "The entire play, I kept thinking about what he said. So obviously I messed up." She scoffs. "A lot. Not enough for the audience to notice but enough for everyone involved in the production to notice."

The shame slipping into her expression and voice makes my stomach churn. I don't know whether I want to find a way to tell off Myron or pull her into a hug. Probably both. But I don't do either no matter how much I want to.

I shift forward. "Did they say anything to you about it?"

Briar shakes her head, rubbing her arm. "Not explicitly. But afterward, Myron came up to me and said..." She sighs, shutting her eyes. "He said that I did a pretty good job for me and that I made opening night something to remember. Before he walked away, he added that I made Sarina's job so much easier for her when she came back."

I grit my teeth. "That's fucked up." She nods, not looking at me. "But..." How do I say this without sounding insensitive? "Shouldn't you care more about how you think you did? Not what other people think?"

Briar lets out a breath, running a hand through her hair. "Yeah. I should've. That's not even the worst thing he's ever said to me. I think I would've brushed it off after a day or two, but Myron kept coming up to me before every single show after opening night. I wasn't even playing the lead anymore after that first night, but he still felt like he had to approach me and say, 'Briar, watch how to hit those high notes.' 'Briar, aren't you glad you're not the lead anymore? Less eyes on you when you mess up.' 'Briar, don't you wish you had that much grace and talent?'"

She grips her knees, staring down at the couch. "Every. Single. Night. For the rest of the play. That was all I heard. Myron didn't even bother me that much for the plays before that one. I still don't understand why he waited for the one time I got to play the lead to repeatedly harass me like that. But he did, and all I could do was pay attention to Sarina and what she did better. But when I was paying attention to her, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, and I messed up even more.

"It got to the point that I told my understudy that she needed to take over for me. And of course, Myron didn't pass up the opportunity to tell me how brave and selfless I was for stepping down and acknowledging I was ruining the play."

Briar swallows. "I didn't want my parents to question why I wasn't participating anymore, so I asked the director if I could just play the violin in the orchestra pit instead. He didn't argue with me, and by then, I already internalized all the passive-aggressiveness, so I just assumed that meant he thought I really was ruining the play."

She wraps her arms around herself. "So I messed up there, too. I doubt anyone could tell, but Myron still went out of his way to make snide comments about how I play the violin as well as I act." She shrugs. "Once the play was over, I decided I was never going to perform again."

I let all that sink in. No wonder Briar's always so self-conscious about doing anything even remotely related to performing. It's heartbreaking, especially once you see how talented she is and how much she loves doing it. And now she won't let herself. And all because of some asshole.

"That sucks," I finally say.

Briar nods, finally meeting my eyes, hers brimming with tears. "Yeah. It does."

I shift closer to her. "But you know you're talented, don't you? There's no way you can't know."

She shrugs, sitting back and smoothing her hair down. "I don't think I'm horrible, but I don't think I'm good either."

"Well, you're incredible. Your family thinks so. Marlowe thinks so. And I definitely think so."

Briar smiles, color flooding her cheeks again. This time, she even meets my gaze as she says, "Thanks."

I nod, studying her. There are still tears clinging to her lashes and one threatens to spill from the corner of her eye. Before I can think, I reach out and brush it away with my thumb, pulling my hand back just as quickly. Her lips part and she straightens as I pull my hand back. My heart pounds, and I don't know what I want her to say about what I just did. So I don't let her say anything about it at all.

I clear my throat, shifting away from her. "Do you ever miss performing?"

She doesn't respond right away, her eyes flickering across my face like she's still looking for an explanation about why I would brush her tears away. I don't know if she reads the answer on my face—reads the fact that it was an impulse I couldn't control—but she lets me change the subject in the end.

"Yeah," she admits, glancing away. "I do miss it sometimes. It could be fun." Her eyes flicker to me. "Especially when I see the way people smile at me when they're enjoying my performance."

That last sentence comes out quietly, but I hear it. And now that's all I'm hearing. And all I'm feeling is my chest stirring and my face burning. My hand itches to reach out for her again. There aren't any tears to brush away, but there are a number of other things I want to do. Hold her hand. Cup her jaw. Tuck her hair behind her ear. I manage to fight the impulses this time, curling my hand into a fist and relishing the pain of my nails digging into my palm.

Briar clears her throat, rubbing her hands together as she looks away. Without her eyes on me, the impulses fade, and I slowly let my hand relax. "Anyway," she says, roughly tucking her hair behind her ears. "That's all in the past. And it's getting late, so maybe I should drive you home."

"You don't have to." Besides, being in a car with Briar in the dark might kill me.

"Why would I let you walk home this late at night?"

I smile. "Maybe wait a while longer. I think I need a nap before I head home." And for my nervous system to calm down.

Briar narrows her eyes. More in a contemplative way than a judgmental one. "Are you actually tired or do you not want to go home?"

"Both." And it all has to do with Briar.

She nods, not pressing. "How long do you want to sleep?"

"I don't know. Maybe an hour?"

Briar nods, picking up her phone. "I'll set an alarm." She yawns. "I might need a nap, too, or I might kill us."

Oh, she has no idea how she can kill me... "Sounds good."

I stretch out on the couch. Briar moves back, lying down, too, her head on the opposite end as mine. Her legs are pressed against the back of the couch, and I have to rest one foot on the ground to leave room for both of us. I don't mind the proximity, but this is killing me in a different way than if I were to sit in a car with Briar alone at night. Especially when the thought of asking her to rest her head on my chest goes through my mind.

"Briar," I say before I know what I'm doing.

She shifts. "Yeah?"

I open my mouth, but the words lodge in my throat. After a while, I know I can't ask, so instead, I say, "Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me."

"No problem." After a pause, she adds, "Thanks for letting me tell you."

"No problem."

Another pause. Then, "Night for an hour."

I laugh. "Night for an hour."

I shut my eyes and try to fall asleep. Even if it's only for another hour, it feels nice to be so close to Briar. So close to someone so nice and caring. And I can only hope she feels the same way about me.