Evan dragged himself up the stairs, exhaustion pressing into his bones after the late patrol. Nearly two in the morning. The halls were silent, the kind of quiet that usually let his thoughts rest, but tonight his head was anything but still.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about Kari since lunch. Their conversation had cut off too abruptly, and the way she’d looked at him, uncertain, a little guarded, lingered like a stone in his chest. He hated the idea of her feeling torn between him and her best friend. He didn’t want to push her away from Joe, not when he knew how much Joe meant to her.
But the truth burned beneath that resolve: jealousy. The thought of Joe being the one she confided in, the one who made her laugh when Evan wasn’t around, made his chest tighten. His possessiveness came t
