“There’s nothing to understand!” he screamed. “You’re fucking married!That’s it! There’s nothing else I need to know!”
Rain streamed down his face, but it didn’t hide the devastation in his expression. His hands shook visibly as he raked them through his hair roughly. Seeing him unravel did something unbearable to my heart. I broke right alongside him.
“I don’t love her!” I tried to get a word in edgewise—tried to make him understand. The words sounded pathetic, even to me.
“I don’t care! I don’t care if you’re married to the worst person on the fucking planet! You don’t fucking cheat!” His voice broke with the last word, catching in his throat. “You made me the other guy, Harley! That’s not me!”
The disgust on his face gutted me.
Other guy.
I’d never meant to reduce him to something like that. I’d never meant to diminish this thing between us into something dirtyand secretive like that. How did I make him understand that it meant something to me?That he meant something to me.
“I’m sorry—”
“You’re not!” he snapped. Stepping into me, he jabbed a finger at my chest. “If you actually fucking cared about me, you never would’ve put me in this position! You wouldn’t have done this to me!”
Each word cut into me, tearing me apart little-by-little. My heart was racing so hard it hurt. There was a high, thin ringing in my ears that made everything feel distant and distorted. The world swam around me, thick and heavy.
“I was going to tell you—”
“When?” Maverick barked. “When the fuck were you going to tell me? After you moved back to the city? After a month? Two? A fucking year? When?”
“I don’t…” I faltered. I didn’t have a good answer for him.
The absence of one terrified me. Because in that absence, I heard what he heard: that I never intended to tell him. That I was covering my ass and hoping he bought it. That I’d been willing to let this thing between us continue as long as I could get away with it.
“I let you back in!” he screamed, his voice rising with his desperation. “I told myself it was a bad idea—youwere a bad idea!”
“Please,” I begged pathetically. My stomach twisted violently, and bile surged into my throat. “Mav…”
“No! I trusted you, and you used me!”
The rain blurred everything as my eyes stung with the onslaught of water, but I still caught how his face twisted painfully at the wordtrusted.
“I’m done with you! I’m done with us! I’m done with this whole damn place!” he hollered. “You and your family are the worst fucking thing to happen to me!”
The words knocked the air out of me.
Worst thing…
My chest constricted so tightly I thought I might actually pass out. The idea that I’d become that for him—that I’d replaced every good memory with this moment—was unbearable.It broke me.
He yanked his truck door open and climbed inside. I lunged forward, catching the edge of the door before he could slam it shut.
“Please, Maverick,” I choked out, my pride and dignity gone. I would’ve fallen to my knees and begged if that was what it took to get him to stay. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t leave like this.”
He looked at me—really looked at me—and whatever he saw there, it didn’t soften him. If anything, his expression grew colder.
“I wish I’d never met you,” he said, his voice low and lethal. “All you and your family do is ruin everything. I wish I’d never fucking met you.”
The words detonated in my chest. For a split second, I couldn’t hear the rain. I couldn’t feel the cold. I couldn’t breathe as the world stopped around me.
The door slammed in my face, and the engine roared to life. I took a wide step backward as the tires spun, spraying water across my legs. The headlights cut through the rain as he backed up fast out of the drive.
“Maverick!” I screamed, running after the truck. My feet slipped on the mud and rain, but I kept going. My lungs burned as I struggled to breathe. “Mav, please!”
The truck didn’t slow. It hit the road and fishtailed slightly on the slick pavement.And then he was gone.Red taillights faded into the storm until they were nothing, swallowed up by the dark.
