I yank open the door and storm out. But I don’t slam it. Because I’m not angry. Not really. I’m terrified. Of him. This. How good it felt to be seen and wanted and touched in a way that made me feel like I mattered. Of how much I wanted to believe it.
Of how, for the first time, the lyrics stopped. And I justfelt.
I get in Ruby’s car and stare straight ahead. Her dashboard smells of strawberry gum and coconut body spray. There’s ahalf-eaten granola bar in the console, a glittery pen wedged beside the gearshift. It’s chaotic. Warm. Safe.
She doesn’t say a word. Just drives. Her silence is the kindest thing anyone could offer me.
Even though I’m the one who asked for the escape, my throat burns. I left him. Again. And I hate how much of me wants to turn around.
Chapter 24
Malachi
Thedoordoesn’tslam.That’s the part that guts me. She walks out wrapped in silence, not fury, and that’s how I know she’s really gone. Not just storming off to make a point. Not waiting for me to chase her. Just… gone. And I let her go.
The sheet still carries her warmth, clinging to my skin the way a ghost might. I drag a hand down my face, try to swallow the taste of her, but it’s everywhere—on my lips, my tongue, buried under my fingernails.
I breathe in deep, chasing the high of her, but it backfires. The air still reeks of sweet citrus and sweat, tangled with the faintest trace of old soap. I want to hate it. I want to need more. Both wants cut the same. The hit lands in my chest, a memory I shouldn’t be mourning and can’t seem to let go.
I should be satisfied. I touched her. Felt her. Took everything she gave and didn’t apologize for a single second of it. But I’m not fucking satisfied. I’m hollow.
My hands flex on my knees, jaw tight. She said it was just sex. Tried to throw it out as a grenade between us and run before the shrapnel hit. But she was shaking when she came. She clung to me, treating me as the last damn solid thing on earth.
Then she flinched when I touched her after. Not during. After.
That’s what splits me open. Not the hate in her voice, or the way she spat the word just as though it meant nothing, but the way she looked right through me, making it feel as though letting me hold her meant she failed.
I didn’t want her like that. I wanted her unguarded. Real. Not running from me like I’m another damn ghost from her past.
The way she folded in on herself after, tugging the blanket up as armor, still burns behind my eyes. Her breath had hitched, almost carrying a song that never got the chance to rise. The silence she left behind was louder than any scream. The walls are too quiet now. I sit in it, shirtless, bruised by the way she touched me with shame hiding beneath every motion. Her body leaned into mine as though my hands were betrayal. I stare at the door she didn’t slam. Wish she had. Wish she’d screamed, cursed me, thrown something.
Instead, she gave me hope. For half a second, I felt it. In the way she kissed me like she was drowning and I was air. The way her hands clutched at me, desperate to hold on to something that made sense. She let me in.
Then she locked the door behind her on the way out. I stand slowly. The sheets are a mess, her scent still thick in the air. I don’t bother fixing them. Can’t. Not yet.
The backs of my knees ache as I straighten, every muscle aching under tension held too long. My fingers twitch once, instinctively reaching for the phone, then curl into a fist. No.
Instead, I pull on my boxers with stiff fingers, heart thudding too loud in the quiet. My phone buzzes, but I ignore it. It’s probably Knox or Nash or some club shit that can wait. The onlything I want to do right now is scream into the hole she left behind.
But I don’t. I just sit back down. Hands clenched. Eyes on the door. Waiting for a fight I know won’t come. Because she already won.
I don’t even know what the fuck I’m fighting for anymore, her hate or her love. Maybe both. Maybe they’re the same.
Thesun’stoodamnbright. It pours through the clubhouse windows, staking its claim, slicing through the smoke, noise, and chaos with no regard for what happened the night before. Or maybe it just doesn’t care. It catches on the dust in the air, glinting with a static charge. Sparks that never landed.
Knox is talking to Kyle near the bar—something about a parts shipment getting delayed—and Nash is playing silent sentry, arms crossed, eyes flicking across the room, scanning for ghosts. Frankie’s chatting with East about the books. Why they have to be in here to do that, I don’t know. Sloane’s probably at the hospital.
And Candace? Yeah. Still gone.
I’m at my desk with a stack of paperwork that won’t stop staring at me. My coffee’s cold. My phone’s at 3%, even though I keep checking it, hoping she might’ve texted. She hasn’t.
Not a word. Or a lyric. Not even the humming I used to catch under her breath when she thought no one was listening. There’s a silence where her rhythm used to be, and it crawls under my skin, a splinter buried deep.
My pen scratches the page, but I don’t register a single word. The words blur. My thoughts spiral. Her voice echoes.Don’t touch me like you care.
I grip the pen tighter. Snap it in half.Fuck. The ink bleeds across the paper like a wound.
“Whoa,” East mutters from a few feet away, raising a brow. “You planning to murder that form, or just torture it slowly?”
