Chapter 242: Boomer
She disappears into Asher’s house, and I don’t drive off.
I grip the wheel with both hands and watch the door close behind her like it’s the last scene in a movie. My chest tightens, stomach knotting, something br and slow burning behind my ribs. But I stay. Just in case.
In case she comes out with tears streaming
her face.
In case he says something wrong, or
not
enough.
In case she needs me.
I stare at the house like it’s a living thing that might spit her back out any
econd. But minutes tick by. Then more. The sun dips a little lower in the sky
turning everything gold. The driveway stays empty. The door stays closed.
An hour passes.
She’s not coming out.
I rest my head against the steering wheel for a beat, eyes closed. Then I lift my phone and type the only thing I can think to say.
If you need anything, I’m here. Always.
I don’t know if she’ll answer. Doesn’t matter. She knows now. That’ll have to be enough.
The drive home feels longer than usual, even though it’s the same stretch of road. Maybe it’s just that the car feels different. Quieter. Colder. Like something essential got pulled out of the passenger seat and took all the air with it.
When I walk into my place, it’s everywhere.
Her scent. Her warmth.
It’s like she’s still here, in pieces.
Her perfume lingers in the bathroom like a ghost I don’t have the guts to chase away. The throw blanket on the couch is rumpled, the one she curled up in the night before last when she couldn’t sleep. A sock–small, white, hers–sits balled up near the edge of the rug. I don’t even know how I missed it earlier.
And on the kitchen counter: her scrunchie. Bright teal. Slightly stretched. Still warm from her wrist, maybe. I pick it up, rub it between my fingers.
It’s the dumbest little thing. But it feels like it holds a hundred memories I never even got to have
I stand there, gripping it like it’s a grenade, trying to breathe around the pressure in
my
chest.
Then I explode.
I slam my fist into the wall with a snarl, drywall cracking beneath my knuckles. “Fuck!”
My hand throbs. I welcome the pain. It distracts from the sharper one in my chest. The kind that says you should’ve known better. The kind that says you let yourself hope.
I lean my forehead against the wall, breath heaving, trying not to picture her smile. Her laugh. The way she slept with her fingers curled loosely into my t shirt, like I was safe.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
She was supposed to be a guest. A friend. Someone † protected for a few days, that’s all.
But then she called me safe, and something in my chest cracked wide open. She cooked in my kitchen and laughed at my terrible jokes. She let me brush out
Chapter 242: Boomer
her hair, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt… wanted. Not in the way people want a Navy SEAL at their bark during a mission, a in the way people want you to lift heavy things or break down doors.
She made me feel wanted in a soft, quiet, human way.
And like an idiot, I let myself fall for her. A little too fast. A little too hard. A little too late.
Because it was always going to be him.
Asher’s a good man. A damn good one. One of the best. He’s earned every inch of loyalty from me, and more. But he also gets the girl. He is the girl’s entire
universe.
I know it. She knows it.
And if I’m being honest, I saw it from the start–the way she looked at him, like he hung the stars. Even when she was mad. Even when she was hurting Hell, even when she was in my apartment, eating my food, laughing at my jokes… I knew her heart was somewhere else.
Still. I let myself wonder.
What if?
What if she saw me the way I see her?
What if she stayed a little longer? Let me touch her hair for a few more nights. What if she started to feel at home here?
But that door closed the moment she walked into Asher’s arms. And I’ll never be the kind of man to stand in the way of that.
So I sit down on the couch–our couch,
I should give it back. Or toss it.
as
s my dumb heart still wants to call it–and stare at the scrunchie in my hand.
But I loop it around my wrist instead, just for tonight. Just for the hours I still miss her like this.
I grab my phone, needing a distraction before I lose my mind completely. I scroll. Thumb flicking through endless nothing. Memes. Reels. Posts I don’t even read. I can’t shake the hollow feeling. The sense of absence. The sound of her voice echoing in the quiet.
Then I see it.
A message request.
@Mila_ballerina_78
I click on it.
It’s a photo from the night we had sushi. Me and Penny, mid–laugh, chopsticks sticking out of our noses like tusks. She’s got her eyes crossed. I look like I’m trying to sneeze.
It’s idiotic.
Underneath, she wrote:
“you look dumb.”
I stare at the photo for a long second.
Then I laugh. It bursts out of me before I can stop it–short, sharp, a little broken at the edges. But real.
It feels good, that laugh. Even with everything burning.
Chapter 242: Boomer
I hit Accept on the message. Then I type hack:
“yeah, I do.”
Send,
It’s stupid. A blip of something light in the middle of all this ache.
But right now, I’ll take anything I can get.
Because I miss her.
And maybe I always will.
