A Kiss For Three

chapter 12

Daniel caught the tension faster than most. He glanced between me and Adrian, then smirked—too casual to be polite, too knowing to be coincidence.

“Well,” he drawled, tugging his scarf higher. “I suddenly remember having somewhere else to be.”

“Daniel—” I started, but he was already waving me off.

“Don’t worry, I’ll text if the old lady turns out to be a super-spy or something.” His grin tilted lazy as always. “Have fun not having fun, loser.”

And just like that, he melted into the foggy street, swallowed by Manhattan’s heartbeat and the hiss of passing taxis.

I was left standing there, cold air biting my cheeks, my pulse uneven. The mist beaded on my lashes; steam rose from a nearby grate, warm as a subway’s breath, curling around my ankles.

A halal cart bell chimed down the block, sweet smoke mixing with rain and exhaust. The city felt close enough to touch—neon slicking the pavement, sirens far off like a throat clearing. My jaw ached from clenching. Old habits—count the exits, clock the shadows—surfaced without asking.

Adrian stepped forward. The streetlight haloed him in pale gold. His coat collar was turned up, his hands in his pockets. He looked tired—but not angry. Not even disappointed.

“You sure do have some quirks,” he said lightly, that half-smile breaking through.

I bristled, defensive by instinct. “I have work, Adrian. Some of us don’t get paid to play.” I moved to brush past him, but his hand closed around my arm—gentle, not forceful. Just enough to stop me.

“Still avoiding us?”

“I’m not avoiding anyone,” I snapped. “I’m busy.”

He tilted his head. “Too busy to answer texts? Or to show up at the rooftop?”

The question hit harder than I expected. It landed somewhere between guilt and longing, that uncomfortable space I’d been pretending didn’t exist.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” I said, sharper than I meant to.

Adrian didn’t flinch. “Maybe not. But I’m asking anyway.”

Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe fear, maybe the fact that he was standing there calm and grounded while I was one wrong word away from unraveling.

“Because I’m losing control over my own life, that’s why!” The words tore out before I could stop them. “Because someone’s been following us! Because all three of us are in over our heads and pretending we’re not! Because this—” I waved a hand between us “—is dangerous and stupid and reckless! And because I don’t know who I can trust anymore. How do I even know you and Nico aren’t the ones behind those pictures? Maybe you two set this up—to ruin me, to destroy my career, to feed Serena and Camilla their proof!”

The sound of my voice echoed against the wet brick walls. My chest heaved.

Adrian watched me quietly. No anger, no shock—just quiet. When he finally spoke, his tone was steady, almost curious. “Why would we want to compromise you?”

I blinked, thrown by the calm in his voice. “I don’t know,” I muttered. “Because you’re both men of status, and maybe I’m just stupid enough to think we could get away from the world. Maybe it was naïve to believe you actually wanted peace instead of control.”

He let the silence stretch. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a low, warm sound that made me more uneasy than his quiet ever had.

“Iris, you’re unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t trust anyone or anything. You don’t even trust yourself—but you trust your skepticism?”

It wasn’t an accusation. More like gentle teasing, and somehow that made it worse.

“I trust what keeps me alive,” I answered, softer now, but there was no conviction behind it.

“Do you?” His gaze was steady, too steady. I looked away first.

For a long moment, we just stood there. The fog curled around us, soft and gray, muffling the noise of the city. Then he exhaled and gestured down the street. “Come on. Let’s get something to drink. It’s freezing out here.”

I hesitated, then nodded. My feet moved before my brain decided. We walked mostly in silence. His stride was easy; mine was tight with leftover anger.

The streets were slick with mist, the lamps glowing faintly orange. A bus sighed past, trailing rain; the East River sent a damp chill up the avenue. Somewhere, the F train growled underfoot, a low reminder that the city kept going whether I did or not. Neither of us said much until we found a café still open—one of those corner places that smelled like burnt espresso and sugar. He held the door, and the bell above it chimed softly.

We sat outside under the awning, steam fogging from the cups between our hands. The quiet wasn’t uncomfortable anymore, just heavy. Drips gathered on the awning edge and fell in metronome time.

Adrian broke it first. “You know, you didn’t have to keep pretending you were made of steel.”

I snorted into my coffee. “You don’t know what I have to do.”

He ignored that. “I know you don’t want to allow yourself to, but you can trust us, Iris.”

“Us?”

“Me and Nico.” His gaze didn’t waver. “We’re not trying to hurt you—we’re just trying to…” He stopped mid-sentence, looking down at the steam curling off his cup.

“Trying to?” I pressed.

He smiled, faint but sincere. “To live to the fullest. To find some peace when everything around us is so intense and flashy and fake. To be just us.”

Something in my chest twisted. I could hear the sincerity in his voice, and that was what scared me most—that he meant it. That maybe he wasn’t lying.

I didn’t say anything. I just watched him, watched how his hands cradled the cup like he was grounding himself in its warmth. The street hummed with traffic, neon bleeding into puddles. It all felt strangely still.

He looked up again, eyes catching mine. “You could always choose your path, Iris,” he said quietly. “Just don’t base it on your fears.”

Before I could reply, he stood, tossed a few bills onto the table, and his breath fogged briefly in the cold air. Then he gave me that small, almost-smile—the one that could be kindness or warning—and turned to leave.

I sat there long after he was gone, the coffee cooling in my hands, the fog thickening around me. The awning drip kept time with my pulse; somewhere a rooftop unit hummed its tired lullaby.

My anger thinned to ache, then to nothing, and the city, damp and stubborn, pressed its palm to my back as if to say: move. His words echoed, annoyingly gentle. Don’t base it on your fears.

If only it had been that simple.