Angel's POV
I didn't think twice.
Terrell asked the question and the answer came out of me before I'd even fully processed it - clean and certain.
"Merrick."
Immediately the word landed, I felt the ripple of it move through the crowd.
I made the mistake of glancing at Terrell.
Just for a second. Just a fraction of a second.
It was enough.
The hurt on his face was not the obvious wound of a man who had expected to get his way and hadn't. It was quieter than that. Deeper. The expression of someone absorbing something they had seen coming and finding that anticipating it had not, in fact, made it hurt less.
I looked away.
Stop it, I told myself. Stop it immediately.
I had no business feeling anything about that expression. Not guilt, not pity, not the complicated something that had tried to move through my chest when his jaw had set and his eyes had gone to the sea.
Stop it.
