“Stay and eat with me.”
“I’d rather starve,” she muttered – and slammed the garage door behind her, leaving him standing there alone in the kitchen… speechless.
CHAPTER 19
NETTIE
The second thegarage door slammed behind her, the sound ricocheted through the stillness like a gunshot. Nettie flinched, her whole body tightening as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her heart hammered in her chest, her breath caught halfway between a sob and a sigh. Everything inside her seemed to narrow to a pinpoint, clicking into terrible focus.
“Oh my gosh,” Nettie whispered, her voice a fragile thread. She pressed one trembling hand against her stomach, trying to soothe the knot coiling tighter and tighter there, and lifted the other to her forehead in sheer disbelief. “What have I done?”
The words felt hollow, but they were all she had.
After she’d left the dealership, she had been so giddy, so lightheaded with the thrill of her new car, that she’d driven without aim. Just the hum of the engine beneath her and the road stretching endlessly ahead. It had felt like freedom—something she hadn’t tasted in years. But then, somewhere between stoplights and street signs, her excitement had shifted.
She’d realized she couldn’t just go home, not yet. She needed to see Tate. Needed to thank him. Needed…somethingshecouldn’t quite name. That was the only reason she pulled into his driveway. That was her intention.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
She hadn’t planned on stepping into his kitchen, on mimicking the way he teased her about speaking “Tate,” trying to prove that she could match his energy, his effort, and the changes he was making. He’d said things were starting fresh today, hadn’t he? That they could try? So why not her, too? Why couldn’t she step up and prove that she could change? That she could put in the effort, be brave?
But somewhere along the line, she’d gone terribly wrong.
It had felt too good—dangerously good—being in his home again. Surrounded by the scent of him, the warmth of his presence. Too intimate, too personal. Watching his guarded features soften when he looked at her. Catching the flicker of approval, of longing, in his eyes. And when she caught him checking her out, her chest had filled with something fragile and fiery all at once.
She’d felt beautiful. Wanted. Alive.
And that wasexactlythe problem.
Because tangled with those sparks of joy came shadows. Shadows of things she thought she’d buried long ago: rejection, isolation, loneliness. The crushing abandonment she had once felt when Tate had looked at her with that same intensity, only to push her away.
Back then, she’d been just a girl with a crush. A silly teenager pining after her idol, her impossible dream. He had broken her heart once. But now… now it wasn’t the silly ache of a girl. This time, it cut deeper. This time she knew exactly what it meant to have someone—truly have them—and what it would cost to lose them.
The scratch had become a wound.
The wound had split into a slice, sharp and raw, right through her soul.
She stood frozen in the garage, her back to the house, her hands fisted tight as if she could physically hold herself together. She stared at the cement floor, at the scuff marks near his truck tires, at anything that would keep her from falling apart.
Then she heard the soft creak of a hinge.
The door opened, and with it came the weight of inevitability.
Nettie turned, slow and reluctant, the way a heroine in a horror film turns toward the shadow that’s about to swallow her. Her stomach churned, her pulse drumming in her ears.
And there he was.
Tate stood in the doorway, one large hand braced against the frame, his expression stripped bare. There was no smirk, no teasing remark perched on his lips. Just him—raw, vulnerable, aching and lonely. It mirrored her own feelings so perfectly that it nearly broke her.
“Come inside,” he said simply.
The words might as well have been a trapdoor beneath her feet.
“No.”
“I think we need to talk.”
“I think I’ve said enough,” she whispered, her throat burning as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She despised that he had this power over her, that he could unravel her with so little effort.
