My thumb didn’t press.I couldn’t do it.Blocking him would be an act of war.A declaration.And I didn’t want war.I wanted distance.
So I did the thing I was best at.I put him in a box and taped it shut.I left the phone on silent.
I turned on a show I didn’t care about.I answered a work call and slipped back into the version of me that never trembled.
And later, when I crawled into bed in my own apartment with my own sheets and my own quiet, I stared at the ceiling and listened to the city hum outside my window.
My phone buzzed once more on the nightstand.
I didn’t pick it up.
Not because I didn’t want him.
Because I did.
And wanting him was exactly the kind of complication that could ruin everything I had fought to build.
Chapter15
Loco
She didn’t answer.
At first, I told myself she was busy.DC was always busy.The kind of busy that swallowed whole days and spit them back out after midnight.I left a voicemail that night, kept it light, kept it short.Just told her I hoped she got home safe.
No return call.The next morning, I sent a text.You okay?
Delivered.Read.
Nothing.
That one hit harder than I expected.Did I feel like some lovesick fool for reaching out incessantly?A little bit, yes, but I told myself it was just concern.I was worried, friends worried after all and we weren’t anything more than that.Even though I knew friends didn’t still feel the ghosts of her kiss.
I stood in my kitchen staring at the phone like it had personally betrayed me.Fifty-two years old, decorated military career that only ended due to a back injury, I survived things that put men in the ground, and here I was rattled by three dots that never appeared.
I tried again the next day.Not needy.Never needy.Just present.And I wasn’t about to let her forget me or brush me off.
I’m not trying to complicate things.Just want to hear your voice.
Silence.
That was when it started to hurt.
Not sharp.Not dramatic.
Dull.Persistent.The kind of ache that sat in your chest and reminded you of itself when things got quiet.Which, unfortunately, my life had become.
I kept replaying her walking out of that hotel room.Calm.Controlled.Like she hadn’t just undone me with one night and a morning I wanted to stretch into forever.
We aren’t this.She said it like a verdict.Such finality.
I went back to routine because that’s what men like me did when something got under our skin.I rode, miles under my bike.I lifted weights telling myself it helped my back ache.I handled club business.I answered calls that mattered and ignored the ones that didn’t.
But everything reminded me of her.
DC came up on the news—some hearing, some protest—and my attention snagged.I found myself wondering if she was in one of those buildings, sharp as ever, eyes narrowed, spine straight, taking up space like she belonged there.Because she always had.
By the fourth day of unanswered calls, I stopped pretending this was casual.
