But she's already gone.
I don't move for a long time.I just lie there in the gray morning light, sheets still warm from her body, her scent lingering on the pillow beside me.
My chest aches.Not the sharp pain of anger or betrayal, just a dull, hollow feeling that settles deep in my bones.
She ran.
Of course she ran.
I scared her.Not with anything I did last night—Christ, I was so fucking careful, so deliberate about showing her she mattered—but with how much it meant.How deep it went.How real it felt.
She felt it too.I know she did.I could see it in her eyes, hear it in the way she said my name, feel it in the way she held on to me after like she was afraid to let go.
And that's exactly why she left.
Because feeling something real is more terrifying than feeling nothing at all.
I sit up slowly and run my hands through my hair, trying to make sense of the mess in my head.Part of me wants to go after her.Find her.Make her listen.Make her understand that last night wasn't just sex, it was something else.Something that matters.
But I can't.
I can't chase her.Can't push.Can't demand she give me something she's not ready to give.
She has a kid.A life.Scars from someone who hurt her badly enough that she's still carrying the weight of it.
And I just added to that weight by saying another woman's name in her bed.
No wonder she ran.
I stand and pull on jeans, leaving the shirt off.The room feels too small suddenly.Too quiet.The sheets are still rumpled from where she laid, and I have to resist the urge to press my face into the pillow just to smell her again.
Fucking pathetic.
I strip the bed instead, bundle the sheets, throw them in the corner.I can't sleep in them tonight knowing she was here and now she's not.I can't torture myself with the ghost of her.
My phone's on the dresser.I check it, no messages.Not that I expected any.She doesn't have my number.And even if she did, she wouldn't text.
She made her choice clear when she walked out that door.
I just wish her choice didn't feel like a punch to the gut.
* * *
The clubhouse is quiet when I emerge from my room.It’s too early for most of the brothers, too late for the ones who crashed here last night.It’s just me and the silence and the stale smell of beer and smoke.
I head to the kitchen and put coffee on.I stand there watching it drip, not thinking, just existing in the gray space between exhausted and wired.
Footsteps approach from behind me.I don't turn.
"Rough night?"Cowboy's voice, careful and knowing.
"Something like that."
He comes to stand beside me and leans against the counter.He doesn't push.Just waits.
"She left," I say finally."This morning.Before I could…" I stop.Before I could what?Convince her to stay?Promise her things I'm not sure I can deliver?"Just left."
"You let her go."
