Not yet.
But her hand found his—fingers threading together—and he didn’t pull away.
???
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aria
The diner was one of those places that felt frozen in time—faded red vinyl booths patched with duct tape in the corners, a jukebox in the back that hadn’t worked since the nineties, and a faint haze of grease and cigarette smoke that had soaked into the walls decades ago. The neon “Open 24 Hours” sign in the window flickered every few seconds, throwing pink and blue light across the tabletop. Bev, the waitress with tired eyes and a name tag held on by a safety pin, poured their coffees without ceremony, the dark liquid sloshing slightly in the thick white mugs. She left the pot on the table and walked away without a word.
Aria sat across from Jax in the booth near the back, the one half-hidden by a fake potted plant that had seen better decades. She didn’t open the laminated menu. She just watched him.
He looked smaller than she’d ever seen him. Shoulders rounded forward, hoodie hanging loose on a frame that had clearly lost weight in the months since she’d last seen him in person. Hishair was longer, unkempt, curling at the ends from the humidity. Dark circles carved shadows under his eyes, and the stubble on his jaw had gone past designer scruff into something closer to neglect. His hands—those steady, calloused hands that had once gripped a steering wheel like it was an extension of his body—now rested on the table, fingers laced together so tightly the knuckles were white.
He kept picking up a single fry, turning it slowly between thumb and forefinger like he was inspecting it for flaws, then setting it back down untouched. The plate in front of him was barely disturbed. One bite of burger, maybe two. The rest had gone cold.
Aria felt the ache in her chest sharpen every time he exhaled—a long, shaky sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs.
She hadn’t come here for answers tonight. She hadn’t come to demand explanations or force him to talk.
She came back because he needed someone to sit beside him in the dark. Because grief like this didn’t need fixing—it just needed witnessing. And she could do that. She could be the person who stayed.
There were still so many things they needed to unpack: Min-Jae, the assumptions they had both made, the way she’d let the silence stretch too long on her end too, the fear that had kept her from fighting when he had ended it.
But not tonight. Not while Nan’s breaths were still measured in hours instead of years. Not while Jax looked like he was just holding himself together.
She reached across the table—slow, deliberate—and laid her palm flat between them. An invitation, not a demand.
Jax stared at her hand for a long moment. Then, he placed his on top of hers. His fingers were cold. She curled hers around his, thumb stroking the back of his knuckles in slow, steady circles. He didn’t pull away.
“I’m not with Min-Jae,” she said quietly, the words slipping out like they’d been waiting too long. “That conversation in the studio—with the photo, it was goodbye. Final. No second chances, no loose ends.”
Jax nodded slowly. “It hurt. Seeing that photo. But I get it now. I just… couldn’t think straight. Everything was falling apart and I kept waiting for the next shoe to drop. Thought maybe that was it—you going back.”
“I’m not going back,” she said firmly. “Not to him. Not to that version of us. I’m here. With you. Because I want to be.”
He looked at her then—really looked. Eyes glassy, red-rimmed, searching her face like he was trying to memorise it all over again.
“How long are you staying?” he asked, voice so low she almost missed it.
“As long as you need me.”
The words landed soft but solid. No hesitation. No qualifiers.
He swallowed hard. Blinked once, twice. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I might need you for a while,” he said roughly.
“Then I’m here for a while.”
Bev swung by again, cleared the plates with a quiet efficiency, left the bill. Jax paid without looking at the total. They stepped out into the night. The air was cooler, carrying the faint smell of the river and the distant hum of traffic. Their footsteps fell intoan easy rhythm—slow, unhurried. His hand stayed in hers the whole walk back.
???
Jax
They left the diner in silence, the night air thick and warm against Jax’s skin as they walked to the car. The hospital lights still glowed in the distance, a low orange haze that pulled at him like gravity. He couldn’t shake the feeling that every step away from that beige room was a betrayal. That if he left—even for a few hours—something irreversible would happen the moment his back was turned.
