Chase’s lips quirked, slow and deliberate, like she had just walked straight into his trap.
"Well, Monroe," he murmured, voice dipping into something rougher, something teasing, "you could buy me that drink."
Savannah fought the way her pulse roared in her ears.
Mallory cackled.
Gus poured another bourbon.
And Savannah?
She knew—she knew—she was in trouble.
Savannah inhaled slowly, willing her heart to settle. But it was impossible—not with him standing this close, not with the gravity of his presence pressing into every inch of her skin, not with the weight of his words still hanging in the air like a challenge she wasn’t sure she could refuse.
She had spent the past year convincing herself she had made the right choice. That leaving had been necessary. That she and Chase had been doomed from the start, that some loves weren’t built to last, that what they had had been nothing more than a fleeting, reckless, too-intense storm that had always been destined to burn out.
But now?
Now she was looking into the eyes of the man she had never stopped loving—eyes that had haunted her in dreams she refused to talk about, eyes that she had spent a year pretending didn’t still hold a part of her.
And he was looking right back. No anger. No bitterness. Just– warmth.
And that?
That was so much worse than she had been prepared for.
Chase watched her carefully, the teasing edge that had laced his words all night fading, shifting into something deeper, something softer. Something dangerous.
"You really thought I wouldn’t want to see you?" His voice was quieter now, the hum of the bar fading into nothing but static around them.
Savannah swallowed. "I didn’t know what to think."
Chase tilted his head, eyes scanning hers, seeing too much—always seeing too much. "Yeah, you did."
She hated that he still saw through her so easily. She exhaled shakily, dropping her gaze to the drink Gus had placed in front of her, tracing the condensation on the glass with her fingertip, grounding herself in the coolness of it.
"I guess I thought… maybe it would be easier. If you had moved on. If you didn’t care."
Silence stretched between them, thick and crackling.
And then—
"Sav," he said, gently, like he was speaking directly to the deepest, most hidden, most fragile part of her. Like he was touching her without ever lifting a hand. "I tried."
Her breath caught. She froze.
He tried.
Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her gaze—and suddenly, the Chase standing infront of her wasn’t the confident, easygoing man who had spent the night making The Hollow his kingdom.
No.
This was just Chase.
The man who had memorized her coffee order down to the extra pump of vanilla. The man who had stayed up with her on the dock until sunrise, talking about everything and nothing, about futures and fears and the kind of quiet hopes neither of them had ever spoken to anyone else. The man who had let her go. Even though she was pretty damn sure it had broken him to do it.
The weight of everything—the regret, the loss, the sheer aching missing of him—slammed into her all at once, stealing the air from her lungs.
