I’m gone before she can decide how she feels about that.
The drive home is a blur of red lights and empty streets.
By the time I pull into my garage, I realize something else I can’t undo.
I don’t know her name.
Not her last name. Not even her first. I don’t remember hearing it, and I didn’t ask. I wouldn’t recognize it if it showed up on my phone.
That should bother me less than it does.
I shut the car off and sit there, hands on the wheel, feeling the weight of how easily I slipped back into something that used to feel effortless.
How little it meant.
I went through the motions. I made sure she was satisfied. I did everything right—technically.
And still, when it mattered, I was somewhere else.
I got out of the car and let the silence of the house close in around me.
This wasn’t about wanting her.
It was about proving I could still be this guy.
All I proved was how empty it feels now.
Chapter Twenty
AUDRA
The day doesn’t slowdown for me just because I was gone.
Emails stack up. Meetings blur together. I’m pulled into a conversation near the elevators before I even get my bag under my desk. Someone needs numbers. Someone else needs a decision. It’s familiar enough that my body settles into it without asking how I feel.
That helps.
By midmorning, I’ve already talked to three departments, revised a presentation, and put out one small fire that never needed to be one in the first place. Jamie hands me a folder on her way past.
“He moved the vendor call to tomorrow,” she says. “Didn’t like their tone.”
“Shocking,” I reply.
She smiles faintly. “You good?”
“Yes,” I say. Still true.
She hesitates, then nods and keeps walking. No hovering. No softness. Just space. I appreciate that more than she knows.
I pass Derek’s office twice without stopping.
Once, he’s on the phone, posture rigid, jaw tight. The second time, the door’s closed. I don’t linger long enough to wonder why.
By early afternoon, my head is buzzing—not from anything emotional, just from the pace of the day. I grab my mug and head toward the break room, mentally reorganizing the rest of the schedule.
The coffee machine is being temperamental, which feels personal.
“Of course,” I mutter, tapping the button again.
