“I see you, Bear,” I say quietly. “I see the weight you carry, too. And while I could guess a million reasons why you’re wired this way, I don’t really care about the why right now. I just want to show you something different. Let me rework your algorithm, just a little bit.”
“It’s not about letting someone take care of me or show me something different,” he says, eyes steady on mine. “And it’s not that plenty of women haven’t offered. It’s about surrendering to it. Allowing it in.” A pause. Honest. Final. “And that’s not something I’m willing to do at this point in my life. At least not beyond a certain point.”
I whisper, “Why not?”
His answer is swift.
“Because this has to end. That’s the agreement. I made it with myself long before I promised you a week.”
“Eli—”
“Look, Max, I’m not being vague for the hell of it. I’ve just spent a long time learning how to survive the exit. I don’t do slow fades or messy entanglements. I do the clean break. So while I know it’s disappointing, I can’t let you in beyond a certain point.”
I nod slowly. “Too messy. Self-preservation.”
He nods. “You’ll leave. And if I let this become hope for more than a week,” he says, his voice dropping, “then it isn’t just a beautiful memory anymore. It becomes something I have to lose. And I’d rather walk away while I’m still the one holding the doorthan wait for the moment you decide you’ve had enough of the view.”
Shit.
And now he has mycompleteattention.
“Bear…Eli… I—”
Ding. Dong.
The sound slices through the moment like an axe. I blink, thrown by the timing, by the weight of what I was about to say. I want to tell him I’m not in a rush to leave. That I could work from anywhere. That my whole life is in the cloud and I don’t need to be tethered to Atlanta, or to the plan I thought I had before I met him.
I want to say,I haven’t even left yet...and I already miss you.
But I can’t.
The doorbell already answered for me.
Eli pulls the steaks off the grill, the smell trailing behind us as Eli and I step off the deck toward the front of the house. We’re still wrapped in the heavy silence of his last words— you’ll leave—when we see the van outside.
It’s white. Clean. Corporate. The logo on the side readsExcelsior Rentalsin sharp blue print, like it’s here on official business.
“Expecting someone?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Not at all,” Eli replies, brow furrowed.
A man steps out of the van with a clipboard in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
My suitcase.
“Miss Palmer?” he calls.
“That’s me,” I say, stepping forward with cautious curiosity.
“Looks like this got left in the back of your rental after the accident,” he says, holding it out.
“Oh my God—I didn’t even realize I was missing a bag!” I exclaim, genuinely surprised. I’ve been so wrapped up in Eli, hisworld, and whateverthisis between us, I didn’t even notice part of mine was gone.
It’s also the near empty bag I kept to bring books home from the conference so I didn’t really miss anything that was in it.
The man chuckles. “Most women would’ve been calling us nonstop over a missing bag—makeup, outfits, all that.”
I look at Eli then offer a sheepish grin. “I guess I’ve been a little…distracted.”
