“I didn’t mean what I said. About any of it. I was scared. Iamscared. You showed up and turned my whole damn world upside down, and then you told me I’m going to be a dad, and I panicked. Not because I didn’t want it, don’t want you, butbecause I wanted it too much. And I don’t know how to be the guy who gets to keep good things. I’ve never been that guy.”
Silence stretches.
In the background, someone drops a tray in the kitchen. A clang, a muttered curse. I don’t move.
“I miss you,” I whisper. “I miss the way you hum when you’re stirring something. I miss your smart ass comments. I miss you taking up all the oxygen in this place like you were born to breathe life into it. Into me.”
I don’t mention Savannah showing up at The Marrow last night, all smug smiles and mascara and unresolved bullshit, acting like she still had a claim on anything. On me.
She doesn’t.
Only Josie ever did.
“Please call me,” I say, voice cracking. “Just... yell at me. Tell me to get lost. Tell me you’re leaving Silver Peak, and I’m an idiot. I am. But say something. Anything.”
I hang up before I say more. Before I confess the part that’s chewing me alive from the inside.
That I love her.
That I think I have for a while.
That I feel like I’m bleeding out in the middle of my own kitchen because she’s not here.
Somewhere down the hall, Nova is probably rallying the staff, covering for me again. I owe her a raise. Or a vacation. Or a new car. Maybe all three.
But all I can do is sit here in the dark, listening to my own breath, surrounded by the scent of spices and ghosts.
And the echo of a woman who walked away.
It’s after midnight when I step out the back door of The Marrow, sleeves rolled to the elbows, shirt clinging with the heat of a long night on the line. The mountain air cuts cold against my sweat-damp skin, but it’s a relief. A slap to the face I probably deserve.
I don’t expect to see her.
Savannah’s leaning against my truck like she owns the damn thing. Leather jacket, tight jeans, perfectly tousled blonde hair, and that familiar smile I used to think was seductive. Now it just looks like trouble.
“Been waiting long?” I ask, voice flat.
She gives a dramatic sigh, like I’ve wounded her. “Knox. Come on. You don’t have to be like this.”
I walk past her, not stopping. “I do, actually.”
She follows.
“You’ve been dodging my calls,” she says.
“And I’m gonna keep doing that.”
“You’re making a mistake,” she hisses. “You think that girl in her little apron is going to stick around once she realizes who you really are? Once she sees how dark you can get?”
I whirl on her. “You don’t get to talk about her.”
She looks stunned for a beat. Then something shifts. Her smile turns sharper. “You’ll regret this.”
I don’t respond. Just get in the truck and slam the door.
I don’t see her again that night.
But by morning, the bomb has detonated.
