Ryan positions her suitcases carefully, then straightens, saying something that makes her laugh. Not a polite laugh. A real one. Her head tilts back, blonde hair catching sunlight, and I can see her shoulders shake.
He's leaning in closer now, gesturing with his hands. Animated. Confident. The kind of casual body language that speaks of familiarity, of comfort.
She's smiling.
Not the nervous, uncertain expression she wore around Marty. Not the blank performance mask she's been wearing for six months while going through the motions of pretending to be normal.
She's genuinely fucking smiling at this man.
My jaw locks tight enough that my teeth ache.
A black Honda pulls up to the curb. Scarletta checks her phone, confirms the license plate. Ryan immediately moves to load her luggage into the trunk—all four pieces, organized efficiently like he's done this before.
Has he done this before?
How many times has he helped her with her bags? How many conversations have they had that I don't know about?
The angle's wrong. I can't read their lips. Can't hear a single fucking word over the traffic noise and distance.
Ryan closes the trunk, walks her to the passenger door. Opens it for her like a gentleman. She turns to say something—probably thank you, probably goodbye—and he responds with what looks like "see you soon."
She gets in.
The door closes.
The Uber pulls away from the curb.
And Ryan stands there watching it drive away, hands in his pockets, wearing a smile like he just won something.
I'm not sure how much time passes before I actually snap out of the fugue state watching Scarletta respond to actual flirting from a non-beta male put me in, but the airport pick-up lanes are quieter now.
I make my way to my Jeep, get in, start it up… sit there.
She's not going to come to me.
A woman doesn't drop everything to book a glow-up trip to Vegas because she's looking to go backwards.
A woman does that when she's put the past behind her.
I pull out of the airport and begin the drive back to Jackson. I need to think this through and I don't have somewhere to properly do that in Idaho Falls.
I don't put on tunes.
Don't even register the rolling farmlands and small-town charm in Victor. Those picturesque stretches of rural Idaho where red barns dot green fields and weathered fences line the road like something out of a postcard.
Don't look at the beautiful mountain scenery through Teton Pass as I navigate the tight switchbacks—the towering peaks and dramatic ridge lines that usually pull my attention, the kind of raw wilderness that normally grounds me when everything else feels chaotic.
Don't do anything but think as I make the two-hour drive back to my log mansion in the woods.
My mind is a closed loop playing the same thirty-second clip on repeat: Ryan's easy conversation. Her laugh. The way she leaned into him like they were friends, like she'd done it a hundred times before.
What the fuck is happening here?
Later,back at home, I'm pacing the office. Phone in hand, mind twisting, thoughts spiraling…
I'm losing her.
I gave her space. Clean break. I was very careful with my voyeurism. Public places. Cornerstone's hacked security, the Greenbelt trail cams, Iron River's front door from the public camera across the street.
