And that, it turns out, is the only thing I needed anyone to do.
Fourteen
Griffin
She’s asleep before I make it back from the bathroom.
I check on her before I sit. It’s an old habit, and something I’ve been doing every thirty minutes since the hotel floor. I can’t seem to turn it off. She’s on her side, hair still damp from the shower, one hand under her cheek. She looks younger when she’s asleep. She looks like herself.
I pull the chair to the window and sit with the dark outside and the quiet of a small town.
I should sleep. Tomorrow is going to require functioning brain cells, and I’ve been running on fumes since the church, but my head won’t go quiet.
I don’t let myself think too hard about the last hour. The bathroom floor. The way she came apart, like something that had been held together past its limit.
I think about bridges instead.
That first year away—the first time I truly stepped out from under the shadow of my past—was the loneliest year of my life. I remember the biting wind of the New York winter, the way the cold felt like it was trying to hollow out my chest. I’d spendtwelve hours on-site, buried in blueprints and the smell of wet concrete, and then I’d go back to a studio apartment alone. I missed the noise of the Callahan house. I missed the way Piper’s violin would bleed through the walls when I was supposed to be studying with her brother. Out there, on my first solo project, I realized that building something meant more than just steel and tension. It meant knowing what you were willing to leave behind to see it stand. I proved I could survive without them, but as I look at Piper now, breathing softly in the shadows, I realize just how much I missed them. How much I missed her.
My phone screen lights up on the arm of the chair, shaking me from my thoughts.
Unknown number.
I take the phone into the bathroom and close the door before I answer.
“Hello?”
“Put her on the phone.”
I go still.
Ezra’s voice is a little loose at the edges, the kind that comes from drinking several drinks and the confidence of a man used to people following his orders.
My jaw clenches so tight I’m surprised I don’t crack a molar. “She’s asleep.”
“I don’t care. Wake her up.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Not going to do that.”
There’s a long breath, then the sound of a glass being set down. “Listen, I don’t know what she’s told you, but I need to speak to my fiancée.”
I glance at the engagement ring on the vanity. She never put it back on.
“She didn’t tell me anything. She doesn’t need to.”
“Then you don’t know the full picture.” His voice settles into a casual tone, like we’re two reasonable men having aconversation, like this is just a misunderstanding to clear up. “I know this looks bad. I know how she operates.”
“Do you?”
“She does this. The drama. The running. You think this is the first time she’s done something like this? This is Piper. You know her. She can be unstable.”
I look at the wall and pray—for Piper’s sake—for patience. “Is that so?”
“She’s been this way our whole relationship. I’ve been managing it. I don’t expect you to understand the whole—”
“What’s her favorite song?” I ask.
“What?”
