"That's all I'm asking."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The brushstrokes blurred together around 2 a.m. Edie blinked, forcing her eyes to refocus on the section of wall in front of her. The scaffolding creaked softly beneath her weight as she shifted, reaching for a smaller brush to add detail to the orc player's jersey—number seventeen, the retired legend whose championship-winning goal had defined a generation of Emerald Enforcers hockey.
Her hand trembled slightly. Exhaustion or emotion—she couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The arena was silent at this hour, nothing but the hum of emergency lighting and the distant rattle of the heating system Tarmek had secretly upgraded. She'd discovered that particular act of service three days ago, when she found the work order tucked into a maintenance log while she was looking for something else entirely.
He never said anything.
Of course he hadn't. That was Tarmek's way—actions instead of words, care expressed through fixed heaters andupgraded insulation and better lighting that appeared without explanation.
She loaded more paint onto her brush and attacked the next section with unnecessary force. She'd been working for six hours straight. Not because the deadline demanded it, but because being here—surrounded by paint fumes and half-finished images—was easier than being in his condo. Easier than lying in his bed, feeling his arm around her waist, knowing that every moment of comfort was borrowed time.
Temporary,she reminded herself.This was always temporary.
The word had become her mantra over the last few days. She repeated it while brushing her teeth in his bathroom. While using his coffee maker. While watching him move through his morning routines with that precise, controlled grace that made her chest ache.
Temporary. Finite. Ending.
The mural spread across the wall in front of her, a visual history of the Emerald Enforcers that would outlast her presence by decades. Future fans would walk through this lobby and admire the colors, the movement, and the careful attention to detail. They'd have no idea that the artist who created it had been falling apart while she worked.
Stop being dramatic.
But it wasn't dramatic, was it? This was the part she'd been avoiding, the moment she'd been dreading since the first time Tarmek kissed her in his kitchen. The reckoning.
She'd let herself get attached.
No—that was a lie, the comfortable kind she'd been telling herself for weeks. She hadn'tletherself get attached. She'd thrown herself headfirst into attachment, wallowed in it, built a life around a man who organized his spice rack alphabetically and growled when she stole food from his plate.
Idiot.
The brush moved mechanically now, filling in shadows and highlights while her mind spiraled elsewhere. She thought about his hands—large, scarred, and impossibly gentle when they touched her. Thought about the way he watched her when he thought she wasn't looking, like she was something precious and fragile and worth protecting.
No one had ever looked at her like that before.
No one had ever made her want to stay.
And that's exactly why I have to go.
The logic was sound. She'd learned this lesson a hundred times in a hundred different towns—attachment was a trap. People who stayed got hurt. Roots meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant pain. Better to leave while she still could. Better to rip off the bandage before it became a second skin.
The brush slipped, leaving a streak of blue where green should have been.
"Shit."
Edie grabbed a rag, dabbing at the mistake with shaking fingers. The paint smeared instead of lifting, and she swore again, louder this time.
Focus. Just finish this section and go back to the condo and?—
And what? Pack her bags? Load up the camper with no heat? Drive away from the first place that had ever felt like home?
Her throat tightened.
Don't cry. Don't you dare cry.
She hadn't cried in years. She hadn't allowed herself that particular weakness, not since she'd learned that tears didn't change anything. You could sob your heart out, and the world would keep spinning and people would keep leaving. Nothing would be different when you finished.
