After Cassian left, the air in the mansion shifted. The quiet that settled wasn't heavy or awkward—it was contemplative. Xander leaned back against the door for a beat, watching the spot Cassian had stood, the echo of his words still playing in his head. She passed.
Xander wasn't sure why that mattered so much to him.
When he returned back into the living room, Erin was already sitting back on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her, scrolling idly on her phone. But she wasn't really focused, and neither was he. So he cleared his throat, and her eyes flicked to him.
"You get to pick what we're doing today."
Xander leaned back against the doorframe, arms crossed as if he were preparing for a negotiation. His tone was casual, but Erin sensed a challenge buried underneath it. Like he didn't think she'd come up with anything that'd surprise him.
Her grin came slow, a little wicked. "Really?Anything?"
He arched a brow. "Within reason, yes."
Erin pretended to ponder this with exaggerated seriousness. "Well, in that case… let's go out."
Xander looked mildly amused, clearly expecting more.
"I mean out-out. Somewhere we don't usually go. And I'll pick the place as we go."
There was something almost childlike in her tone, like she had this one plan and didn't want to reveal it too soon. But beneath the excitement, she was aware of the ticking clock. This might be her last day here. The final moments before she disappeared from his life. She wanted it to matter.
Xander didn't argue. He grabbed his coat, nodded once, and followed her outside.
They ended up strolling down a quiet street lined with shops. Erin's eyes lit up when she caught sight of a quaint little bookstore tucked between a flower shop and an antique store. "That one," she said, pointing without hesitation.
Xander looked skeptical. "A bookstore?"
"You said I get to choose."
"I just didn't peg you as the type."
Erin threw him a mock-offended look as she pushed open the door. "And what type is that?"
"I don't know. The 'gets excited over spine-cracking and paper smells' type."
"That's literally every book lover ever."
Xander huffed a short laugh and stepped in after her.
The bell above the door jingled softly, and a wave of musty, woody calm washed over them. Shelves loomed from floor to ceiling, the place quiet but not eerily so—just peaceful. The kind of quiet that invited curiosity.
Erin headed straight for the fiction section. Xander trailed behind her, half-amused, half-curious.
She ran her fingers over the spines with reverence, pausing now and then to read a blurb or flip through pages. At one point, she held up a book with a garishly illustrated cover featuring a woman in a flowing dress clinging to a brooding man with a sword.
"I once judged a book by its cover and ended up reading a 700-page story about a woman who fell in love with her kidnapper," she said. "I couldn't tell if it was romantic or psychological trauma in long form."
Xander smirked. "Stockholm Syndrome, now with plot twists."
"Exactly." She giggled. "And I finished the whole thing in a day. Couldn't stop."
He leaned closer, inspecting the cover. "She's clinging like she knows chapter twenty's going to hurt."
Erin burst into laughter.
They wandered deeper into the store, Erin occasionally picking up books and summarizing absurd plots for Xander. "This one's about a guy who time-travels using an antique microwave. I'm serious. I read it last year. He only travels twenty-four hours, so he just uses it to get tomorrow's stock prices."
"Genius," Xander deadpanned. "I'd invest."
"I'd sue the author," Erin said with mock conviction. "Also, microwaves are already terrifying. Add time travel and you've got a kitchen portal to chaos."
As she flipped through another book, she winced. "Ugh. Paper cut. That's why libraries scare me more than haunted houses."
He reached over, catching her hand. "Let me see."
"It's nothing," she said, but didn't pull away.
He inspected the tiny cut on her finger like it was a crime scene. "Still intact. No finger loss today."
"Barely." She squinted at it. "Back in eighth grade, I got a paper cut in a library and genuinely thought I was going to lose a limb. It bled for ten seconds."
"And that's the origin story of why you became emotionally unavailable," Xander teased.
"Exactly." Erin grinned. "Books betrayed me."
They paused in front of a shelf lined with hardcovers. Erin picked one up and held it open between them. "This one's good. Listen to this line—'He kissed her like the world would burn down the next morning, and he'd promised to build her a new one from the ashes.'"
Xander blinked. "That's… intense."
"Right? If someone kissed me like that, I'd forget my name."
"Let's hope you don't forget it tonight," he muttered, voice quieter than before.
She froze for half a second but moved past it. "Your turn. Find the most ridiculous line in this store."
He scanned the shelf, pulled out a random novel, and flipped it open. "Here we go—'Her heart fluttered like a bat on caffeine.'"
Erin snorted. "Ten out of ten. Pulitzer."
They kept going, trading book quotes like jokes. For a moment, everything was easy. There was no embezzlement, no secret missions, no betrayal or stakes or lies—just books, laughter, and two people forgetting what they were supposed to be.
Xander watched her as she talked, her expression animated and bright, her fingers trailing the edge of a page like she was caressing a living thing.
He couldn't lie to himself anymore.
He was falling. Or had already fallen. He didn't know the exact moment it happened—maybe when she argued with him over toast, or when she stared down his parents like royalty—but it was real. And heavy. And frightening.
She looked up and caught him staring.
"What?" she asked, smiling but cautious.
He shrugged, his voice low. "Nothing. You just… surprise me sometimes."
"Good surprise?"
"The best kind," he said, and turned away before she could ask more.
Erin placed a book in the crook of her arm and started toward the front of the store. "You realize we're just hoarding quotes and judging bad romance covers at this point."
"It's productive."
"Emotionally, maybe."
As they reached the checkout counter, the shopkeeper smiled warmly. "Looks like you two had fun."
Erin nodded, glancing at Xander. "You could say that."
They left the bookstore with a small paper bag and a shared sense of something unspoken humming quietly between them. The air outside was warmer than before, the world busier, noisier—but they carried a little silence of their own.
Xander held the door open for her, and Erin stepped out.
"Alright," he said, "what's next?"
Erin smiled without looking at him. "Let's just keep walking."
And they did.