“Yeah, yeah. Guess we have different definitions.” My voice is rough. She’s beautiful. Not her dog. That’s a fact known to every man who’s ever looked at her.
I force my feet to move. Force myself toward the door. I pause with my hand on the knob and look back. She’s standing in the middle of her tiny living room. Paco sits at her feet, gazing up like he’s in love. Light from the grimy window edges her in gray. No gold, no pool reflections, no ridiculous floaties or grill smoke.
Just her.
Alone.
It feels wrong in every cell of my body.
“Lock it behind me. Deadbolt every time. Don’t open it for anybody you don’t know. If he comes back, you call 911, then you call me. In that order.”
“Go. Before you make me regret not calling an Uber.”
It’s a joke, but there’s truth underlying it. I nod once and step out. The door closes. I hear the deadbolt slide home. The heavy clack makes my stomach plummet. For a second, I just stand there in the shitty hallway. Staring at the cheap painted wood panel, at the new metal plate that’s supposed to make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
I make myself walk away, down the crumbling steps to the parking lot below. To my sports car, hugging the curb, and looking totally out of place. I slide in, shut the door, and just sit. My hands rest on the wheel. I can still feel her kiss on my cheek. I can still see her face when she said I need space.
I’ve been here before. Different girl, different apartment, same hollow feeling. With Cecilia, I ignored it. Tried harder, pushed further, and clung tighter. Got burned so bad I swore I’d never let myself want like this again. Now I want more than I ever did with her.
“I’m not going to fuck this up,” I tell the empty car. “Not again. I’ll give her all the space she wants, even if it kills me. No smothering this time. Trying to force a fix that neither of us wants.”
The engine fires to life with a low growl. I pull away from the curb, forcing myself not to look back in the mirror. Give her space, I remind myself as her building disappears behind me.
Let her breathe.
The problem is, space is exactly where guys like her ex live. In the gaps. In the silences. In the distance between what we want and what we’re brave enough to ask for. And for the first time since the accident, since Em almost died on that road, a new fear settles in my gut.
Not just of losing my brother.
Of losing her.
So, I do the only thing I know to do, I call Holli.
He picks up before the second ring.
“Come through.” Chill as always. I don’t always appreciate it, but I do today. I need it.
I try to swallow, but my throat is thick. “You busy?”
“No. Tell me what’s going on. Is it Em? I just saw him this past week, and he seemed to be hell on crutches. Does anything slow that guy down?”
I chuckle as empty as I feel. “Yeah, Sofia, but she went home.”
“Back up, I’m missing something.” His voice sounds clearer as if he is paying more attention.
I blabber on about the last twenty-four hours from the ex, to our place, to Em’s fucking mouth ruining shit, and everything that brought me to now. He hums. Not judgment, just acknowledgment.
My voice cracks somewhere in the middle. “We didn’t want her to leave.”
“Sounds like it.” His voice is calm. The way he gets when he knows I’m holding something tight to my chest and pretending I’m not.
“It wasn’t just . . . sex,” I say, rubbing my thumb along the steering wheel seam because it keeps my hands busy. “It was more. She let us in. Let me in. And I could see it in her face, but then Em opened his damn mouth, and she shut down fast as fuck.”
Holli exhales.
It rumbles through the speakers.
