Chapter 4: Talking
The silence in the car wasn’t just an absence of sound; it was a physical presence, dense and awkward, filled with the ghost of the bass from the club and the echo of that girl’s laughter. Svet stared out the window at the darkened storefronts rushing by, feeling the weight of his unasked questions. Her head was pounding, but it was from the adrenaline, not the music.
“So,” Joe said finally, his voice a low vibration in the small space. “What happened back there?”
His directness surprised her. She’d expected him to just drive, to let it lie. She gathered her sarcasm like a shield.
“The acoustic physics of a bass bin meeting my skull happened,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I think I lost a filling. And some brain cells.”
“Not that,” he said. He didn’t look at her, eyes on the road. “With that guy. Diego. You looked… mad.”
She had not expected him to notice, or to name it. She shrugged, a movement she hoped seemed casual. “Diego’s fine. Just another communications major who thinks eye contact is a marriage proposal. It got tedious.”
He was quiet for another block. “You left with me.”
“You had the car keys,” she said, too quickly. Then she softened it, leaning her head back against the seat. “And you looked like you were being slowly digested by a very determined python. Seemed like a mercy mission.”
A faint, breath-like sound escaped him. Almost a laugh. “It was.”
The admission hung there. He turned the wheel, taking them away from the main drag and into the quieter streets bordering campus. The Chargers flag on a nearby apartment building mockingly caught the streetlight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words out before she could filter them. She looked at him. “For ruining your night, I mean. You seemed… interested. In the python.”
Now he glanced at her, his big brown eyes reflecting the green of a traffic light. “Interested?”
“Yeah. At the pillar. She was… persistent. I figured you must have liked it, or you’d have walked away.”
He slowed for a stop sign, coming to a full, complete halt. He turned his head fully to look at her. In the dim light, his expression was unreadable, but his voice was clear. “Svet. I spent the whole night watching you try not to watch me. The only thing I was interested in was why you were dancing with a guy who made you roll your eyes every time he spoke.”
Her breath caught. The shield of sarcasm felt paper-thin. He’d seen everything. Of course he had. He was quiet, not blind.
She had to redirect. To level the field. “He was Alexa’s latest attempt at human happiness for me. You know how she is. And you… you’re her brother. Her other project.”
He accepted this, nodding slowly as he accelerated through the intersection. “Yeah. She’s relentless.” A pause. “The coffee cart on Zelzah is still open. You want one? Actually help your head?”
The offer was so normal, so startlingly kind, it disarmed her. “Sure. Yeah. Black.”
He nodded, and five minutes later he was pulling up beside a brightly lit cart manned by a bored-looking student. The normalcy of the transaction—the steam, the clink of a lid, the exchange of cash—further punctured the surreal tension of the last hour. They pulled into a nearby campus parking lot, mostly empty, and he cut the engine. The only light came from a tall lamppost a few spaces over, casting long, dramatic shadows inside the SUV.
She took a careful sip. It was terrible and perfect. “So,” she said, echoing his earlier opener. “You spend a lot of nights fending off pythons?”
“It’s part of the scenery,” he said, his voice devoid of ego. It was just a fact. “Like traffic cones or marquees. You get used to it.”
“Must be exhausting,” she said, and meant it.
“Sometimes.” He took a drink from his own cup. “Less exhausting than whatever game you and my sister are playing.”
“It’s not a game,” she said, a defensive edge creeping in.
“The guy you were dancing with. Diego.” Joe said the name carefully, as if testing its weight. “What was he?”
The question was a minefield. What was he? A prop? A distraction? A mistake?
“A guy Alexa thought checked boxes,” Svet said, tracing the rim of her cup. “Good hair, knows how to dress, can form sentences. The usual checklist.”
“But not your checklist.”
She looked at him then. He wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t probing. He was just asking, his gaze open and patient. It was the patience that undid her, just a little.
“My checklist is a little more… complicated,” she admitted, looking back at her coffee. “It involves not being impressed by his own reflection. Having a sense of humor that isn’t just quoting memes. Not treating a date like a networking event.”
“And knowing how to take a hint when someone’s not into it,” Joe added, his voice low.
A flush warmed her neck. He’d seen that, too. How she’d disengaged, her smile becoming stiff. “That’s a big one.”
“He didn’t take the hint.”
“Nope.”
“So you used me as your exit strategy.”
The blunt accuracy of it was startling. She forced a laugh. “See? You’re more observant than you look.”
“I look like a brick wall,” he said, a hint of dry humor in his tone. “People don’t expect the wall to be watching back.”
She smiled, a real one this time. “It’s a good trick.”
They sat in a more comfortable silence for a moment, drinking the bad coffee. The night felt vast around them, the confines of the car suddenly intimate rather than oppressive.
“You’re good at it, though,” he said.
“At what?”
“The deflection. The sarcasm. Keeping people at a distance.” He said it not as a criticism, but as an observation, the way someone might note the weather. “You let Alexa think she’s running the show, but you’re always three steps ahead, just… managing the chaos.”
It was the most anyone had seen of her, maybe ever. And he’d done it without pushing, without demanding explanations. He’d just watched. The realization was terrifying.
“Chaos management is a survival skill,” she said, her voice quieter now. All the sharp edges felt softened by the dark and the caffeine.
“I get that,” he said. And she believed he did.
He finished his coffee, crumpled the cup in one massive hand. “I should get you home.”
“Yeah.”
He started the car, and the real world flooded back in with the soft purr of the engine. The spell of the parking lot was broken. As he drove her the short distance to her apartment complex, the conversation lapsed back into safer territory—Alexa’s latest drama class, a tough professor they both had, the Chargers’ preseason schedule.
He pulled up to her building. She unfastened her seatbelt, the click loud in the silence. “Thanks for the rescue. And the coffee.”
“Anytime,” he said. He meant it.
She got out, but before she closed the door, she leaned down. The interior light illuminated her face, and she made sure her expression was perfectly neutral, a friendly, grateful mask. “And for what it’s worth, Joe… you shouldn’t just stand there. If you see something you actually want, I mean. Walls can move, too.”
She saw a flicker in his dark eyes—surprise, maybe contemplation. But she didn’t wait for a response. She shut the door, gave a small wave, and walked toward her building without looking back, her heels clicking on the pavement with finality.
She didn’t let herself glance at the parking lot until she was safely inside her apartment, in the dark, peering through the blinds. His SUV was still there. He hadn’t driven away. He was just sitting, a dark shape in the driver’s seat, alone with his thoughts.
She let the blind fall and pressed her back against the cool wall. Her heart was beating a hard, fast rhythm against her ribs. She’d given him nothing, she told herself. Just a piece of generic advice. A fragment of truth wrapped in a casual observation.
But as she stood there in the dark, she knew. He’d seen the jealousy. He’d heard the lie in her apology. She’d shown him the careful, managed version of herself, and he’d looked right past it and seen the complicated blueprint beneath. And instead of running, he’d bought her terrible coffee.
That was more dangerous than any feeling she’d ever flirted with on a dance floor.