"Why are you sitting in your car at midnight?" Eliana asked, voice low enough that the night swallowed it. Fernando looked like he always did when he was trying to look innocent—half surprised, half amused, as if Eliana had interrupted a private joke he wasn't ready to explain. He blew smoke away from the dashboard light. Mariner Heights smelled like rain and expensive takeout; the streetlamp threw halos across his face. "I wasn't—" He started, then smiled. "El, what are you doing out here? You look freezing." He reached for her shoulders with the reflex of the man who had loved her longer than he hadn't. He had a coat before she did; he had hands that knew how to make a hard day melt. He wrapped the coat around her shoulders. It was too familiar. It landed on her like someone settling a claim. She didn't move. Coco—Eliana's mutt, who'd curled in the passenger footwell—thumped his tail and let out a bark like punctuation. Fernando chuckled, the sort of easy sound that once made her relax and that now tightened her jaw. "No," she said, and the word was a small, controlled stone. "Don't." Fernando blinked. The smile faltered. "El—" "Don't," she repeated. She stepped out of his coat and the movement was clean, deliberate. The fabric fell between them, a pale flag. He watched it hit the pavement, then watched her walk up the concrete stairs toward