I’d always known better than to trust easy. Always known lettin’ someone see the soft parts was a liability. I’d built my life on control, on distance, on knowin’ exactly where I stood with the people around me.
And I broke every one of those rules for her.
Never again.
The thought settled heavy and cold in my chest, tampin’ the fire down into somethin’ sharper. Meaner. Safer.
If this was what love did to a man, then love could fuck the hell off.
I kicked the bike back to life and rolled onto the road, jaw set, eyes hard, somethin’ feral takin’ hold where hope had been not twenty-four hours ago.
She might’ve played me. But I’d be damned if I stayed the fool.
And whatever part of Chain Riggs she’d gotten that was soft, open, willin’ to believe in somethin’ more?
That part of me was done.
Buried right there in a cheap motel room.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I RAN OUTof the motel room, ignoring Zach whenhe called my name from behind me.
“Lark, wait.”
I barely made it down the stairs before my knees started to shake, my breath turning shallow and uneven like my body hadn’t caught up to what had just happened. The night air hit my face, humid and suffocating.
Chain was gone.
Not just from the motel. From me.
The truth settled heavy in my chest, a slow, spreading ache that made it hard to stand still. I could still see the way hiseyes had gone flat when he looked at me, the exact moment something precious shut down behind them. I knew that look. I’d worn it myself once, back when survival meant locking everything away and never looking back.
Footsteps sounded behind me, too close.
“Lark,” Zach said again, reaching for my arm like it was natural, like he still had a right. “Come back inside. You’re not thinking straight. We need to talk.”
His fingers closed around my wrist.
Heat flared there instantly, sharp and unwanted, my skin crawling like my body remembered something my mind didn’t want to touch. My stomach turned hard enough to make me dizzy.
I yanked free, the motion quick and instinctive. “Don’t,” I said. “I just want to be alone.”
He frowned, not angry. Confused. Like my reaction hadn’t factored into whatever version of this moment he’d already decided was happening.
“You’re overreacting,” he said. “Chain doesn’t understand. I can explain it to him.”
The casual way he said Chain’s name lit something cold under my ribs.
“You don’t get to explain anything,” I said, already backing away. “Not to him. Not to me.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and walked.
I didn’t look back, but I could feel him standing there, no longer calling after me. Just watching. The awareness followed me down the sidewalk like a weight between my shoulder blades.
At first I didn’t know where I was going, only that I couldn’t stay there. The bar felt poisoned now, like the walls had soaked up everything that went wrong and were just waiting to feed it back to me. I passed flickering streetlights and closedstorefronts, my shoes scuffing against cracked pavement while my thoughts circled the same impossible truth.
I had lost him.
