“You’re using your son against me.”
“Am I? That sounds manipulative.”
“Because it is.”
“Can I give it to her now?” Teddy’s bouncing beside me.
“Absolutely,” I say, a little too loud. He grabs the box from the backseat and sprints back.
I lean in close. “Have I told you I love it when you call me Bash?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what, Trouble? Don’t pretend I still don’t want you?”
She goes completely still. The kind of stillness that tells me every word hit its mark. I take one slow step forward, closing the last inch between us, and lower my mouth to her ear. My voice drops into the roughest part of me, the part she once moaned for.
“Because you’re all I fucking think about,” I breathe, letting the truth slip out in a way I can’t drag back. “You wanna know what happens when I think about you?”
Her inhale shudders. Her body tilts toward mine on instinct before she catches herself, fingers curling at her sides. She’s holding the line by a thread. One more word and it’ll snap. I seeit in the way her lashes lower. The way her lips part. The heaving of her chest.
“Here!” Teddy wedges himself right between us, arms stretched up, clutching the gift. The moment breaks, but not the pull. Olivia jumps back, and I take a step away, biting out a quiet curse under my breath as she clears her throat.Perfect timing, kid.But thank Christ, because another second and I would’ve had her against the side of the ute, consequences be damned. She takes the box, lips twitching. Five-year-old hands don’t do gentle. The wrapping’s a disaster, more tape than paper, but she peels it back carefully.
And when the frame comes free, she stills.
This time, it’s us. The three of us.
A photo my sister snapped without warning at the party—Teddy perched high on my shoulders, her hand tangled in his, the three of us mid-laugh at something long forgotten.
Unfiltered. Unposed. Real.
“Becauseyoudeserve to be in photos too.”
I clear my throat like that’ll steady me, but it doesn’t. It fucking doesn’t. Her fingers tighten around the edge of the frame, and that silence stretches—thick with everything Ihaven’tsaid and all the shit Ican’ttake back. She doesn’t say a word, but she doesn’t need to. The look on her face says it all. Like someone just split her chest open without warning, and it wrecks me.
It’s too much and not enough all at once.
“You didn’t…” she starts, her voice too soft, “have to give me this.”
“I wanted to.” I swallow hard. “If you’ve already written the ending to this story in your head, then you’ve clearly underestimated me, Trouble. I’ll rewrite the whole damn thing. Every page. Every chapter. Just to keep you in it.”
Her brow furrows, lips parting, but I keep going because Ihaveto. “Just don’t walk away thinking I didn’t care. Because I did. Ido. So fucking much it hurts.”
And fuck, if I don’t want to go back in time and never mess this up in the first place. But I can’t. So instead, I stand here under the sputtering parking lights, hands in my pockets, heart in my damn throat, and I swear, I’ll go through every awkward silence, every bite of her anger, every scraped-together apologya hundred times over justto see her looking at me like this again.
Because it means there’s still something here.
40
Olivia
From The Ground Up - Dan + Shay
God Only Knew - Sidney
I’m not saying I cried over a framed photo, but if anyone asks, I was suffering from a mild case of seasonal allergies and temporary emotional weakness.
There’s one thing missing from this photo.
