Still Hers

Chapter One

She Knew I'd Come (Sloane's POV)

I left Briarwood through the side door like I always fucking did.

The front lot was a minefield—students, teachers, forced small talk. I wasn't in the mood. I hadn't been in the mood in years. My heels clicked down the sidewalk like I was marching toward something inevitable, because I was. I slid on my sunglasses and didn't even bother to look back at the building. School was over.

And so was pretending to care.

I made it to my car in under three minutes. Tossed my bag in the passenger seat. Papers spilled out—essays, detention slips, notes I'd never read. I didn't care. I had somewhere to be.

My phone buzzed just as I turned the engine.

Gia: "soon?"

I didn't answer.

I'd told Ashlyn I was staying late to finish grading. She didn't ask questions. She never did anymore. She was working overtime, same as always, stuck down at the station "running cleanup" for some internal bullshit she wouldn't let me ask about. She hadn't kissed me goodbye this morning. She hadn't looked me in the eye in days.

We were still married, technically. What a fucking joke.

I'd cheated before. Ashlyn knew that. Girls, mostly. Quiet ones. Soft ones. Ones that let me touch without asking too many questions. But Gia... she wasn't like that. She never had been.

And I never lied this easily until her.

I didn't hesitate on the drive. Forty-five minutes out of the suburbs, through traffic and shitty construction zones, and finally into downtown Chicago. Madeleine College sat wedged between brick bookstores and buildings that tried too hard to look historic. Gia's dorm was on the east side, tucked under a few trees and facing the sidewalk.

I parked behind some frat boy's rusted-out Jeep and stared at her building for a second. The last time I saw her, I'd kissed her so hard in the front seat of my car, I left gloss on her cheek.

I didn't knock. I never had to.

She opened the door like she'd been waiting.

"Jesus," I muttered, eyes dragging down her body. "You always answer half-naked now?"

Gia smirked, chewing on her lip. Her tiny black shorts looked sprayed on. The white crop top she wore was dangerously tight, hugging every inch of her chest, stomach bare and golden.

"What, you don't like it?" she teased, shifting her weight to one hip.

"I like it too much."

I stepped past her into the dorm, and she shut the door behind me with a soft click. It was warm inside, full of that vanilla-sugar smell I'd come to associate with her. Her half of the room was glowing—pink everywhere, plush throw pillows, string lights tangled around the window. Soft, sugary chaos. Just like her.

"You're still in work clothes," she said, eyeing me up and down like she was annoyed I hadn't changed.

"I left five minutes after the bell. What do you expect?"

Gia padded across the room in fuzzy socks, flopping onto her bubblegum-pink comforter with a bounce. "You should've changed. You're all serious and blousey. I feel like I'm about to get lectured."

"You used to like getting lectured," I said, glancing at the vanity stacked with makeup and perfume. "Especially when it ended with me bending you over my desk."

Gia groaned into her pillow. "Don't say that out loud."

"Why not?"

She rolled onto her side and grinned at me. "Because you'll make me horny, and I was trying to be chill."