“Are you ready?” I ask because it’s the only sentence I can manage. She nods, eyes on the door. “Yeah.” Great. So that’s where we are now, her quiet, me pretending silence counts as control.
We walk out together, neither of us says a word.
The storm’s gone.The roads are clear, and everything outside looks calm again. She’s in the passenger seat, scrolling through her phone like she’s already somewhere else, back in her other life, the safe one. Her face is blank, careful.
My hands tighten around the wheel until my knuckles ache. The silence between us is brutal. Too many words sitting in it, unsaid. She’s shutting down. Same as always. And I’m supposed to sit here and let her?
“Hey, Liv?—”
“Don’t.” She cuts me off, voice flat, calm in a way that makes me want to shout. “It’s okay. I understand.” That does it. Something hot flashes through me, anger, frustration, something I don’t even want to name.
“Stop doing that,” I snap. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I have a feeling,” she mutters, still staring at her screen. “Let’s just leave it.” No. Not this time. I yank the truck over onto the shoulder, tires kicking up gravel, the engine growling under the strain. She lurches forward, wide-eyed. “Ethan! What the hell?” I throw it in park, jaw locked, heart hammering so hard it hurts.
The world outside is blindingly bright, sunlight flashing off puddles, the air sharp and cold through the half-open window. Inside the cab, everything feels too small, too close. I unbuckle my seat belt and turn toward her. She looks at me like she’s trying to decide whether to be angry or afraid.
“I can’t keep pretending this doesn’t matter,” I say, the words rough, unsteady. “You can shut down all you want, but I’m still here, and this—whatever this is—it’s not nothing.”
She exhales, shaky. For a second, neither of us moves. Her eyes meet mine, full of everything we shouldn’t say. She stiffens for a second, then breaks. Her hands grip my hair. She kisses me like she needs it. Like it’s the only thing that makes sense. Because right now it is. When we finally stop, I press my forehead to hers, breathing hard. “I can’t do this halfway. I’m not built like that. I love you, Liv. I’ve always fucking loved you.” There it is, I said it, and for some reason, I don’t feel lighter or better.
She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t say anything. Instead, she climbs onto my lap. Straddles me right there in thedriver’s seat. “I love you too,” she looks wrecked, but this feels so honest. “I don’t know what this is. But I love you.” That’s it. I’m done. No going back now.
She kisses me again, hard as she starts undoing my belt and freeing me. I pull up her dress and move her panties to the side. “Liv,” I groan. I’m already losing control. She sinks onto me, slowly, and I’m deep inside of her. She rides me slowly, doing filthy rolls with her hips. I thrust up to meet her, matching her rhythm. I push her forward, bracing her on the steering wheel, fucking her harder, deeper. Her nails clawing into the seat, her body tightens as she comes. Her legs are shaking, she’s panting. A few more thrusts and I’m groaning, spilling into her, hips jerking.
Neither of us says a word, not for the rest of the ride.
All I can think right now is that she didn’t say anything when I said I couldn’t do this halfway. She did say ‘I love you’ and that should be enough, but being realistic, what could I expect from her? That she leaves her husband and comes to live with me, and we all become a great big, beautiful family? That’s ridiculous. What am I even thinking right now? There’s no way in hell I could go to Hannah and say, ‘Hey, I still love Olivia, could we talk about this and what this might entail?’
You are such an idiot, Ethan.
By the timewe reach the site, the sky’s a washed-out blue, and the sun’s back, pretending nothing happened. The road dust sticks to the windshield, and the smell of wet pavement still hangs in the air.
“Give me three, maybe four hours,” I tell her. My voice comes out rough, like I swallowed gravel. Like I’ve been punched in the throat. And I have been, just not by her, by myself.
She nods once, eyes straight ahead, fingers tight on the steering wheel. “Okay.” That single word lands heavier than it should.
We roll to a stop beside the fence line. The truck idles loudly in the quiet. I can see the site up ahead, the half-finished framing, piles of lumber, plastic tarps flapping in the wind. A perfect mess, just waiting for someone to make sense of it. Kind of like us. I open my mouth, trying to find something, anything, that might patch the silence. “Liv, I?—”
“I know.” Her voice is barely there, a whisper that could mean a thousand things. She doesn’t look at me. Just stares out the windshield, jaw set. “Just go.” I stare at her for a second longer, wishing she’d look back, give me something, a sign, a word, anything to hold onto. But she doesn’t. So, I grab my bag and step out into the wind. The door shuts harder than I mean it to.
She pulls away before I’ve even made it to the gate. Tires crunch over gravel, taillights disappearing down the road without a single glance in the mirror.
I stand there for a long minute, bag slung over my shoulder, watching the dust settle around my boots. The hum of the engine fades into nothing, and what’s left is the sound of the wind and the echo of every word I didn’t say.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OLIVIA
I pullinto the driveway and let out a long breath when I see the lights on. Beatriz’s car is parked out front, and no David. Thank God. I couldn’t face him right now.
Inside, I’m hit with the sound of laughter from the playroom. Beatriz meets me at the door with a warm smile. “Welcome back. The kids have been asking about you all morning.” I smile and set my bag down. “I missed them, too.” We chat for a few minutes. She gives me the rundown—who cried, who didn’t nap, what exploded in the kitchen. Beatriz keeps this place running, and I probably don’t say thank you enough.
I thank her, then head upstairs to shower while texting David. ‘Hey, I’m in the city for a few hours, have to stop by the office to work on a crisis, want to grab lunch?’ That’s a half lie, because it’s true, that’s happening, just not to me. I hate lying; I don’t even know when I became so goodat it.
The moment the water hits my skin, the guilt shows up. I hate this feeling, but it’s all my fault. I press my palms to the wall and stand there. Because the truth is, I don’t know how to fix this. I love two men.
That’s the part no one warns you about when you’re growing up. How sometimes love doesn’t show up in neat little timelines.
