Scarlett POV
I’ll give the kid credit; Allen actually had some game.
Not long after our last talk, he hit me with the update: the girl had asked him out to dinner.
First actual date.
Big deal for a twenty-year-old still figuring out how to keep his mouth from wrecking things.
I figured I’d need to strategize, coach him through the nerves, maybe even run interference. Instead,d he dropped a different bomb.
“I told my mom I want to stay independent here in H-country for a while.”
Independent?
That meant he didn’t need me looking after him anymore.
The easy stretch of days I’d been living suddenly felt short. I opened my mouth, “So does that mean...”
He cut me off, already pushing. “Book your flight home. Tomorrow work?”
The urgency in his voice rubbed me the wrong way.
He loo
