Wyatt
Chris looks like he wants to hit something.
Probably me.
He’s standing in Nina’s doorway, jaw clenched, gaze raking across the room—me, the sweat still drying on my skin, the taped-up boxes, the faint trail of her body wash hanging in the air like a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead yet.
I watch realization hit him like a body blow.
His voice is taut. “You alone?”
“Yeah,” I say. “She left this morning. Said she wanted the drive. Something about clearing her head before starting over.”
Those two words make me flinch internally every time I hear them. Starting over means leaving the past behind. It means not going back, not reaching for the life I know we could have had if circumstances had been different.
The circumstance just showed up uninvited. And yet, I’m not surprised in the least.
I step aside and tuck the full trash bag I was taking out just inside the door, then beckon him in. Chris doesn’t move for a beat. Then he crosses the threshold like he’s stepping into a place he doesn’t belong. A crime scene, maybe. Or a chapel.
His eyes scan the evidence: a half-filled box on the counter, full of her favorite books. The softcover copy of The Left Hand of Darkness she made me read. Her notebook. A half-burned candle she only lit when she was trying to write.
I was packing it when he knocked. One object at a time. Like I was saying goodbye with my hands because my mouth couldn’t be trusted. Doubting with every breath that I did the right thing by letting her go. Knowing that my offer to help pack her things was too little, too late.
“Why’d you come?” I ask.
He rakes his fingers through his hair and exhales like it’s the first breath he’s taken since landing. “I thought maybe if I looked her in the eye, she’d listen.”
“To what?”
“That this op’s wrong. That she’s walking into a mess none of us can predict. That Flores and Amador are unstable at best and sadistic at worst.”
There’s real fear in his voice. He’s not faking. This isn’t tactical. It’s personal.
I nod once, slow. “And you think I don’t know that?”
He bristles. “You volunteered her.”
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intend. “Mason brought the opportunity to Nina through Callie. She did her own research, asked her questions, made her own call. I made sure the task force didn’t sideline her once she decided she wanted it.”
Chris stares at me. I watch the accusation recalibrate behind his eyes, the anger looking for somewhere new to land.
He finds it in the boxes.
His gaze sweeps the room again. The careful labels. Kitchen. Bathroom. Office / Books. The bubble-wrapped art leaning beneath bare nails.
“Fine,” he says. “She chose the op. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.” His gaze lands on me again, harder now. “But why didn’t you chase her?”
I don’t answer. It’s like he just held up a mirror to my own self-recriminations. He keeps going, sweeps his eyes around her apartment again.
“She drove out of here this morning and you’re in her place packing her things like it’s a favor.” His voice drops. “I saw how you looked at her, Wyatt. At the wedding. That night. Why are you here instead of with her?”
I close the box. Not sealing it, just covering the wound.
“She needed space. I’m giving her space...” I’ve repeated the excuse so often it’s ceased to have meaning. And maybe that’s the most damning thing of all.
“I was too late,” he says, cutting me off. “But I came.” He holds my gaze. “You were here all along and you let her go.”
The accusation lands square in my chest. Nina said the same thing on the plane a week ago—different words, same wound. And now a man who’s known me for all of five minutes just found it too.
