Dark Hearts (Light in the Dark 3)

Jace shrugs. “Maybe next week. Depends on what I feel like doing.”

“Well, if you do, you need to invite us. This was fun.” She steals a cheese fry from Cade’s plate.

“Hey,” Cade scolds. “That’s mine.”

Thea bites into the fry with a smirk. “Mine now.”

Xander shakes his head.

“How long have you been writing songs?” Rae asks Jace.

Jace shrugs, rubbing his fingers up my thigh. “Since high school. It became a sort of escape.”

She nods. “I see. You’re really good. I mean, I’ve seen you play before but I don’t think I ever realized you write songs too.”

“I might’ve played a cover when you saw me,” Jace explains. “Sometimes I do if I’m not feeling a recent song I’ve written and I’ve gotten sick of playing old ones.”

“Maybe.” Rae shrugs. “It was last year.”

“Are you

going to eat that?” he asks me, pointing to my burger.

I shake my head. “No, I’m done.”

He picks up my burger and finishes it in three bites—which is quite a feat considering how much was left.

“How do you feel about your final?” Joel asks.

“Pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” Jace repeats. “Your project was fucking amazing.”

“What’d you do?” Rae asks. I blush, leaning into Jace.

“Took pictures of me naked,” Jace tells her.

“Oh, ew. Didn’t need to do that.” She covers her eyes like I’ve stuck one of the photos in front of her.

I smack Jace’s shoulder. “You can’t see anything like that in the photos. It’s mostly close-ups or shadows. Kinda abstract in a way.” I shrug. It’s hard to explain without showing them and I didn’t show them in class because it feels private. It was hard enough to hand it over to my teacher. “What’d you guys do?” I ask them, hoping to steer the conversation away from me, Jace, and our pictures.

Rae launches into an explanation of her project and then Joel explains his.

While they speak, Jace polishes off the last of the fries on my plate.

We stay for a good two hours chatting before we all decide to part ways. It’s after eleven, and I’m exhausted from many late nights working on my project and falling into bed with Jace.

Jace and I wave goodbye to our friends and start to walk back to the apartment.

“Oh, my God,” I breathe. “Look!” I point to the sky. “It’s snowing!”

Jace laughs as I twirl around trying to catch a snowflake with my tongue.

I finally catch one, and dizzy, I bump into him. He wraps a hand around my arm to steady me.

“Careful,” he warns. “You might fall.”

He’s right. The ground is quickly growing slick with snow. I twine our gloved hands together and hold onto him as we finish the walk back to the apartment. By the time we get there there’s nearly an inch of snow already on the ground, with more falling by the second. We’ve already had several snows the last few weeks, but nothing major. This looks promising, and it’s just in time for Christmas.