I swallow. “Thin.”
“Shit,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I drag a palm down my jaw, stubble rasping against skin. “He’s still himself, though. Still chirping the Avs. Still convinced my Canes are frauds.”
Dex chuckles, then quiet again. “So, you good?”
I could say yes. I could say absolutely, I’m peachy, I’m a man without a single inconvenient thought in his skull. The lie rises easy. Too fucking easy.
“Yeah,” I say. “All good. Go be charming with the in-laws.”
“Leo.”
“Yeah, man.”
“You can call me later if you need to.”
“I won’t,” I lie.
He exhales like he knows I’m lying. “Alright. Later, brother.”
I end the call before I have to answer that back. Toss the phone face-up on the passenger seat and stare at the black screen until my face floats there, faint and unimpressed.
The quiet rushes in again. It’s the kind of quiet that eats itself. I last four blocks, then unlock the phone and thumb the little red flame without thinking. Tinder blooms like a bad habit I keep in a glass case with a hammer beside it.
I swipe left on a brunette with sharp brows. Left on another with a smile that, if my imagination were crueler, could be Tori’s cousin on a dark night. Left, left—too close, too many lips that look like hers. My thumb stutters over a profile that could have been Pull-and-Replace: same hair, same jawline. Left. Left. It becomes a small ritual of punishment.
Then a blonde pops up. Filter-soft, sunlit laugh in the thumbnail, bio that saysdogs, patios, over games under drama.The part ofme that’s slightly functional snorts. The other part—the one that wants to combust out of my skull—doesn’t care. I swipe right. Match in under a second. A green dot pulses like a detonator. Her name is Kelsey. She messages first:
Hey there what are you up to?
My thumbs move on autopilot.
Headed downtown. You around?
I can be. Harper’s on Main in thirty?
I check the clock because habits die hard. Doesn’t matter. I typeSee you thereand drop the phone back on the seat, laughing without humor. This is the choreography I know: girl, bar, banter, forgettable fuck, make up a weekend get together in the morning. Easy. Disposable. The religion I converted to after Stephanie.
I turn off the highway and into the familiar wide avenue of Main Street. Grand River at night is gutters of light and low music leaking out of brick storefronts—string lights swing over the crosswalks, planters push flowers into the cool air, and the Bookcliffs stand like watchmen on the horizon, dark and patient. People drift between doors, laughter spilling across the sidewalks; the smell of pizza from a place down the block mixes with hops and diesel and the faint woodsmoke from a late patio fire.
Harper’s sits between a yoga studio that glows faintly and a gallery that likes to pretend its bronze sculptures aren’t just abstract chaos. Its weathered wooden sign basks under two flood lamps. I wedge my truck into a slanted spot, kill the engine, and shove my hands into my jacket like that’ll hide the watch. The face catches the streetlight. I want to take it off. I don’t.
Inside Harper’s the air is warm and loud—Edison bulbs, a mural of the Bookcliffs behind the bar, a row of taps that promiseslocal IPAs, and a suspender-clad hipster bartender complete the vibe. The floorboards creak. The place smells like citrus, beer foam, and the kind of cologne guys wear when they want to be noticed for trying. Harper’s is packed but not Denver-crowded; you can still move without elbowing someone’s dignity.
I scan for the blonde. There are three. Of course. Two in black dresses, one in a jean jacket, all leaning against the bar like they’re already half a story in someone else’s night. I take a step forward to text Kelsey and then—because systems break for reasons you can’t explain—I see electric blue.
Skye’s hair flashes under the bulbs like a neon sign. She’s tucked into a high-top, laughing with one hand slung over the back of her chair. Next to her, half in shadow, is Tori.
Everything in me freezes in that stupid animal way, like the brain’s wiring is deciding between fight, flight, or the dumb, decorative third option: freeze. A guy behind me utters something about learning to walk in crowded places and sidesteps, but I don’t move.
Tori’s in a black top that dips at the collarbone, sleeves pushed to her elbows. Her nails are red in a way that makes small, terrible promises. She’s mid-laugh—open, real—and when Skye says something offhand she throws back a look that’s all mischief and teeth. The sight lands somewhere low in my gut and stays.
Relief hits first, oddly. Relief that she’s laughing, not replaying Chase’s hand on her arm like a bad loop. Relief that there’s a friend at her side—Skye—someone liable to make a scene if some guy tried to be a shit. Relief that she’s not alone carrying a shit moment she shouldn’t have had to endure.
Then anger—at myself—for what I’m doing. For summoning a blonde as a decoy, a distraction. For the cliché I planned to act out like the rehearsed farce of fulfillment it’s always been. For telling George the changes he sees in me aren’t about a woman when every stupid action I take is a rebuttal in motion.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
