He stopped a few feet away and said nothing. He just watched me, dark circles carved under his eyes.
A standoff.
I considered ignoring him, but that would be punishment, and he didn’t deserve that. He hadn’t done anything wrong. If anything, I was grateful he’d trusted me enough to open up. The problem wasn’t him. It was me.
I slowed the treadmill to a walk and pulled out my earbuds.
He still didn’t say anything.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I finally said.
“You should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t want to wake you. Besides, I figured you’d either talk me out of it or insist on coming with me.”
“You didn’t even leave a note. I woke up and you were gone.”
“Sorry,” I said, guilt washing over me. “I was craving a drink, and the mini bar was too tempting. This seemed like the best way to deal with it.”
He nodded once. “You still should have told me.”
“I know,” I said, meaning it. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you need to run more?”
I eased the treadmill to a snail’s pace. “No. I just need to cool down.”
He crossed to the glass-front mini-fridge in the corner, grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and handed it to me.
I drank half of it in a few gulps. He watched until I set the bottle in the cup holder, then handed me the cap. I screwed it on as he sat on a weight bench a few feet away.
He looked exhausted, and it was my fault.
“You should be in bed,” I said. “Asleep. I should have just pushed through it.”
“You need to work through your demons how you see fit.” His gaze held mine. “Did it help?”
My burning insecurities had faded but not disappeared. So had my craving for a drink. “Yeah.”
“That’s good. Now you know something that can pull you out of that pit. I’d call that a win.”
“At your expense.”
He slowly shook his head. “Nope. Your success is my success.”
“Were you this nice to her?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He looked momentarily stunned, then he sighed. He knew who I was talking about. “I don’t know. Was I as attentive to her? No, I don’t think so. But I’d like to think she taught me a thing or two about being in a relationship.”
His answer surprised me, but I pushed on, asking the question that had been eating me alive since I’d figured out who she was. “If she showed up at your doorstep, begging you to give her another chance…would you?”
A frown creased his forehead. “That would never happen.”
“Maybe not,” I said, my voice catching. “But what if it did?”
His jaw tightened. “You’re asking hypotheticals, Harper. It’s a dead end.”
That was my answer. A sudden urge to cry burned behind my eyes.
