He didn’t glance over. But I did. His profile looked carved from cold stone. All lines and silence. His mouth in a perfect line, the tendon in his neck visible from where I sat.
He looked controlled. Contained. Like there was something under his skin he refused to let out—not because it wasn’t ready, but becauseIwasn’t.
I thought about speaking. A joke. A whisper. An apology. Something to bridge the space between us.
But I didn’t know which version of him I was sitting beside. The man who once wrapped me in his hoodie and kissed the back of my neck before making me breakfast? Or the man who watched me bleed and said nothing.
I knew he wouldn’t answer either way. So I stayed quiet. The closer we got, the colder I felt. Not on my skin. In my chest. Like something was unraveling beneath my ribs—quietly, thread by thread.
Wolfe turned onto his street without hesitation. No signal. No warning. My body didn’t tense. It folded. My shoulders curved inward. My hands curled into my lap like they were trying to disappear.
I breathed through my mouth—shallow, tight—like that might stop the ache from climbing higher.
When the car pulled into the underground garage, I thought I might cry. Not because I was scared. But because I missed what this used to be. A sanctuary. A home. A place where silence once meant safety.
He killed the engine. Didn’t move. Neither did I. We sat there for a full minute. Maybe two. The quiet between us had evolved into something else—something that hummed like a live wire between our spines. Then, without a word, he got out. Didn’t open my door. Didn’t wait for me. Just walked. Like I was a shadow he didn’t need to check for.
I followed. Not because I knew what came next. But because I didn’t know how not to. He didn’t hold the door. He didn’t even glance back. He just walked through it. Like this was a transaction, not a return.
The apartment was the same. But it wasn’t. The air felt different now. Colder. Filtered. Like someone had replaced the oxygen with something sterile and quiet.
The scent of him was still there—clean, expensive, dominant. But mine? Gone. Scrubbed out. Erased. Everything was pristine. Immaculate. Like someone had come in and reset the entire scene—rewritten it to exclude the chapter where I ever lived here.
I stepped in and froze just past the threshold. The lights were on—dimmed low like someone had considered comfort, but only in theory. The living room was untouched.
No coffee ring on the glass table from mornings he let me curl up with his espresso. No hoodie draped over the back of the couch where I used to wrap myself in the scent of him.
No evidence that I’d ever breathed in this space.
No shoes in the hallway.
No perfume in the air.
No chaos.
No warmth.
It looked like a magazine spread. Perfect. Untouched. Unlived in. Like I had never existed here at all.
Wolfe moved through it like a man walking through a showroom. His body didn’t brush anything. His feet didn’t echo. He just glided from one room to the next without pause.
In the kitchen, he poured a glass of water and left it on the island. A gesture with no instructions. He didn’t say it was mine. He didn’t say it wasn’t. Then he walked away.
Like I was a piece of mail someone had left unopened. I stood there for too long. Long enough for the silence to acknowledge me. Long enough to feel the shape of absence push against my chest.
I stepped out of my shoes. Slowly. Quietly. Like noise might make it worse. The floor was cold against my feet. Sharp. Clean. Sanitized.
Every surface was polished. Every reflection showed me a version of myself I didn’t recognize anymore. I passed the main bedroom. Didn’t stop. Didn’t glance. That room didn’t belong to me. Maybe it never did. He waited at the end of the hall. Not looking at me. Not calling me forward.
Just... standing there.
When he turned, he nodded toward the back of the apartment. A new room. I thought,Maybe a guest room.Something neutral. A couch. A blanket. A closed door and a chance to sleep.
But when he opened the door?—
The hinges creaked.
The light flickered.
