I push through the back door and head straight into another restless Friday night.
The road winds through rolling hills, draped in soft spring green, dotted with bluebonnets and wild poppies that hold the remaining sun in their petals. The truck hums beneath us, tires kissing the asphalt in a steady rhythm as the clutter of town falls away behind us.
Sable hasn’t said much since we pulled out of her driveway. Her hands sit quiet in her lap, fingers twisting the edge of her shirt sleeve. Her body’s here, but her mind’s still caught in the shop mayhem or the conversation she had with Andrew.
“You good?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the road, letting the question remain light.
She exhales, long and low. “I don’t know. I think so. Maybe.”
I glance at her.
She’s staring out the window. “It all just got so out of hand. I’m not trying to start a pity party, but… damn, Hex. I’ve been trying to do everything right. I put myself through school. I built my businesses from the ground up. I worked my ass off to make my life into something that mattered—”
She pauses, and I don’t fill the silence.
“But, somehow, I still ended up with a love life that compares to a car crash. Or maybe a really shitty reality show. And I can’t say I regret it. I got Bash out of it, and he’s everything. But… why does it feel like I keep getting the shit end of the stick no matter how hard I try?”
“Because life’s an unfair bastard,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road. “Doesn’t matter how good your intentions are—sometimes you’re just the one it decides to take swings at.”
I watch color bleed through the crisp blue sky outside the windshield as night approaches. Long strokes of rust and lavender pour across the Hill Country horizon. We haven’t passed another car in ten minutes. It’s just us and the winding two-lane roads that snakes through fields of mesquite and passes low stone fences that haven’t held a damn thing in decades. Everything out here has been weathered slow. Nothing forced. Nothing fake.
Sable props her elbow against the passenger door, cheek resting in her hand. Her other hand picks at the fray in her jeans where a hole has formed—absently, the way people do when they’re trying not to think too loud. The soft light of evening slants across her profile, catching in the curve of her jaw, the loose strands of dark brown hair she didn’t bother to tie back. The exhaustion etched in her posture, her eyes, her lips, mimics the one I’m all too familiar with. The kind of fatigue that lives in your bones.
“My dad left when I was eighteen,” she says, voice barely above the hum of the road. “Just… gone.”
I keep my eyes on the pavement. I listen.
“My parents split, and he decided the version of me that didn’t need him anymore wasn’t the version he wanted in his new life.” Her laugh is quiet and bitter. “Independent daughters with opinions don’t fit well in starter families.”
She looks at me, almost wincing, as though realizing too late that her honesty might paint her in a way she’s not ready to wear. But it doesn’t sound angry to me. It’s real.
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “We both had to grow up at eighteen. I took on my little brother when my mom died. I didn’t really get a say.”
Sable turns fully to face me then, pulling her leg up into the seat, one arm curled around her knee. Her eyes are wide, glassy at the edges, catching every bit of light. “God, I shouldn’t have brought that up. My story is melodramatic compared to—”
“No.” I shake my head, jaw set. “Don’t do that.”
“But—”
“Don’t,” I say again, softer this time. “Your story means something. All stories do. Doesn’t matter if they’re brutal or quiet or messy or clean. They’re real. And I’ve got the feeling no one’s really listened to yours in a long time.”
She doesn’t speak. Just stares, caught in the space between understanding and denial. Hearing me say it is one thing but believing that I mean it is something else entirely.
The truck cab goes still. The road, tires, and evening wind are the only sounds enveloping our space.
“I think I’ve spent most of my life taking what I can get,” she says finally, voice cracking at the edges, “then holding on for dear life. Because I figured if I didn’t, I’d end up with nothing. If your father can so easily walk away, any man can. I just kept doing more and more in an effort to try and get people to want to stay.”
She shifts, swallowing hard, fingers curling tighter against her knee.
“I don’t want to do that with you,” she adds. “But I don’t know what this is. And honestly? I’m off to one hell of a start.”
I glance at her, eyes dragging over the way she’s drawn in on herself. There is so much fire in this woman, who keepswaiting to be told she’s too much of something. Or not enough of something else.
“Maybe we don’t need a name for it yet,” I say quietly. “You just show up. I’ll meet you there.”
She lets out a shaky breath, like she’s still bracing for the catch.
So.
