Another pause. Not uncertainty. Caution.
“I’m telling you the file has been cleared to move forward,” she said. “The seller’s side has indicated acceptance and provided the documentation we need.”
My throat burned. “When.”
“Two days ago,” she replied.
I dragged my hand down my face, feeling the roughness of my own stubble. “I’ll call you back.”
“Mr. Hargrove,” Marlene said quickly, “there are timing considerations. If you’d like to maintain the current terms, we’ll need confirmation from you today.”
“Fine,” I snapped. I softened it a fraction because she didn’t deserve my temper. “Fine. I’ll be in touch.” I ended the call and stood there with the phone still pressed to my ear like my body hadn’t caught up to the fact that the conversation was over.
The brewery suddenly felt too quiet. The hum of refrigeration. The faint drip of a tap line. The distant clink of glass as someone in the back moved a crate.
Holt stared at me. “What?”
I lowered the phone slowly. My voice came out like gravel. “The bank says they’ve got the green light to accept my offer on Ray’s place.”
Holt’s face hardened. “What, how?”
I didn’t answer because answering made it real.
Holt swore under his breath, sharp and vicious. “So she’s gone?”
I swallowed. “Looks like it.” A tight silence stretched between us.
Something hot rose in my chest, fierce and ugly. It wasn’tjust anger. It was grief tangled up in it. Grief because I’d thought after everything, after being dragged out of that cabin, after breathing again on her couch with Dani and Maddy nearby, she’d at least let herself be held for a minute longer.
Instead, she disappeared. She’d chosen a clean cut and made a decision that looked, on paper, like she surrendered.
I wanted to slam my fist into the bar hard enough to crack the wood. I didn’t. I kept my hands flat. I kept my voice low.
“I told myself this might happen,” I said to Holt, more confession than conversation. “I told myself she’d either dig in and fight, or she’d bolt.”
Holt’s expression didn’t soften. “Don’t take it personally.”
“It is personal,” I said, and the truth came out sharper than I intended. “Because she didn’t just accept the offer. She did it without telling me. She didn’t even give me the chance to be honest with her about what she means to me.”
Holt’s gaze held mine. “Maybe she didn’t want your honesty.”
That hit. It hit because it wasn’t impossible.
I exhaled slowly. “No. She wanted control. She wanted to do it on her terms. And she knows if she looks me in the eye, she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.”
Holt’s jaw flexed. “You think she cares that much.”
I heard my own heartbeat again, loud and stubborn. “I know she does.”
The certainty tasted like arrogance. It also tasted like the only thing keeping me upright.
I looked past Holt to the front windows. Outside, Main Street went on living. People walked by with coffees and dogs and nothing on their faces that suggested the world was tilting.
Tessa had vanished into that normal, and she’d done it quietly, like she was trying not to leave ripples. “Where do you think she went?” Holt asked.
“There’s only one place she has to go,” I said without hesitation. “Back to Dani. Back to the apartment. Back to a place where she doesn’t have to look at Ray’s handwriting on every damn label and feel like she’s failing him.”
Holt nodded once. “So what now?”
