Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
My thumb didn’t press. I couldn’t do it. Blocking him would be an act of war. A declaration. And I didn’t want war. I wanted distance.
So I did the thing I was best at. I put him in a box and taped it shut. I left the phone on silent.
I turned on a show I didn’t care about. I answered a work call and slipped back into the version of me that never trembled.
And later, when I crawled into bed in my own apartment with my own sheets and my own quiet, I stared at the ceiling and listened to the city hum outside my window.
My phone buzzed once more on the nightstand.
I didn’t pick it up.
Not because I didn’t want him.
Because I did.
And wanting him was exactly the kind of complication that could ruin everything I had fought to build.
Chapter 15
Loco
She didn’t answer.
At first, I told myself she was busy. DC was always busy. The kind of busy that swallowed whole days and spit them back out after midnight. I left a voicemail that night, kept it light, kept it short. Just told her I hoped she got home safe.
No return call. The next morning, I sent a text. You okay?
Delivered. Read.
Nothing.
That one hit harder than I expected. Did I feel like some lovesick fool for reaching out incessantly? A little bit, yes, but I told myself it was just concern. I was worried, friends worried after all and we weren’t anything more than that. Even though I knew friends didn’t still feel the ghosts of her kiss.
I stood in my kitchen staring at the phone like it had personally betrayed me. Fifty-two years old, decorated military career that only ended due to a back injury, I survived things that put men in the ground, and here I was rattled by three dots that never appeared.
I tried again the next day. Not needy. Never needy. Just present. And I wasn’t about to let her forget me or brush me off.
I’m not trying to complicate things. Just want to hear your voice.
Silence.
That was when it started to hurt.
Not sharp. Not dramatic.
Dull. Persistent. The kind of ache that sat in your chest and reminded you of itself when things got quiet. Which, unfortunately, my life had become.
I kept replaying her walking out of that hotel room. Calm. Controlled. Like she hadn’t just undone me with one night and a morning I wanted to stretch into forever.
We aren’t this. She said it like a verdict. Such finality.
I went back to routine because that’s what men like me did when something got under our skin. I rode, miles under my bike. I lifted weights telling myself it helped my back ache. I handled club business. I answered calls that mattered and ignored the ones that didn’t.
But everything reminded me of her.
DC came up on the news—some hearing, some protest—and my attention snagged. I found myself wondering if she was in one of those buildings, sharp as ever, eyes narrowed, spine straight, taking up space like she belonged there. Because she always had.
By the fourth day of unanswered calls, I stopped pretending this was casual.
I missed her. It was the damn truth.
Missed the way she looked at me like she could see every version of man I had ever been and wasn’t afraid of any of them. Missed the way she didn’t flinch at my rough edges—or try to sand them down.
Missed waking up with her warm and solid beside me, like something in my life finally made sense.
I was at the clubhouse when Tower finally said something. We were in the lobby area of the old bank. The part that had been converted into a common area with a bar.
It was late afternoon, the kind of hour where the light slants low and makes everything look like it’s holding its breath. I sat at the bar with a beer I hadn’t touched, phone face down beside my hand like a loaded weapon.
Tower leaned against the counter across from me, arms crossed, eyes sharp. He had known me long enough not to bullshit. “You gonna drink that or just stare holes through it?” he asked.
I picked up the bottle, took a swallow I didn’t taste, set it back down.
He watched me for a beat. Then, “You look like hell.”
“Appreciate that,” I muttered. “Anyone ever tell you how observant you are?”
He snorted. “Don’t get smart. You’ve been pacing like a caged animal for days.”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t need to. He already knew.
He nodded at my phone. “That her?” Because yes I had a picture of her on my screen. A picture I took of her face pressed against my chest while she slept with a faint smile on her lips. I had never had anyone on my phone screen before. I had never wanted to look at anyone more than once to save their picture.