I hang up, press the phone against my thigh, close my eyes. I stand in the alley until my break runs out.
Jess texts me at eight.Girls' night. My place. Now.
I text back:Working.
Jess:Sal can handle Wednesday. Get in the car. Sarah's waiting for you out front.
Sarah's SUV idles at the curb when I come out, Reeve asleep in the backseat in his car seat. Sarah doesn't ask how I'm doing. She turns up the radio and drives, and I sit in the passenger seat with my forehead against the cold window and watch the harbor lights blur past.
Jess and Finn's place sits on the edge of town, a two-bedroom with a porch Finn built last summer and a nursery he's been painting for six weeks. Jess meets us at the door in sweatpants and one of Finn's flannel shirts, belly pushing the buttons to their limit.
"Wine's on the counter." She waves us in. "I can't drink it so someone better."
"Nina's on the night shift or she'd be here. She told me to tell you Garrett says Rex is an idiot, for whatever that's worth."
Sarah pours me a glass of red, sets Reeve's carrier on the kitchen table. We end up on Jess's couch with our feet up—all of us, the sleeping baby, a bottle of wine I didn't ask for and need more than I'd admit.
"Okay." Jess tucks a pillow behind her lower back and folds her arms over her belly. "Let's hear it."
"Hear what?"
"Holly. Don't be stupid. You look like hell and Rex is gone and you're going to sit here and tell us what happened or I'm going to keep asking until you do, I'm pregnant and mean and I have nowhere to be."
I take a long drink of wine. It's cheap and it's perfect.
"We slept together. In the stockroom, Monday night.Then he told me Bloodstone scouts had a camera on the bar and his solution was to leave.I haven't heard from him since."
Sarah watches me over her glass. "And?"
"And I'm in love with him, obviously." The words come out flat and tired and I hate how true they are. "I've been in love with him for months and I told myself I wasn't because that's easier, and now he's gone and I feel like an idiot."
"You're not an idiot," Sarah says. "You fell in love with an orc. They'll fight a wildfire for you, take a bullet, tear a man apart with their bare hands. But sit down and tell you what they're feeling? That's the hard part."
Jess snorts. "Finn had Colt set up candles in our apartment and dropped to one knee and his hands shook so hard I thought he'd drop the ring. And he's the romantic one."
"I know why he left," I say. "I just don't understand why leaving is always the answer."
Sarah sets her glass on the coffee table. "Knox left his clan, his kingdom, his father's war. He walked away from an arranged marriage, crossed the mountains on foot and built everything he has here from nothing. They all run, Holly. Every single one of them. The question isn't why he left. The question is whether he comes back, and what he does when he gets here. he thinks he protecting you by leaving."
"And if he doesn't come back?"
"Then you'll still be here, and you'll still have this town, and you'll be fine. But I don't think that's how this ends."
"He told me to stay close to Sal and Griz. Like that fixes it."
"Yes." Sarah nods. "Andwhen he gets back, you can kill him for it."
"If he gets back."
Jess adjusts the pillow behind her back. "He'll come back. Finn says Rex has never stayed anywhere longer than a year except Nightfall Cove. He's been here six. That's not a man who's leaving for good."
I finish my wine. Jess pours me another glass without asking and we sit on the couch and talk about nothing and everything—Jess's swollen ankles and the nursery colors she can't decide on. Sarah's theory that Reeve already has Knox's stubbornness, the fact that Finn burned dinner last night for the fourth time this month and Jess is considering banning him from the stove. Somewhere between the second glass and Jess's rant about Finn's cooking, the knot behind my ribs loosens.
At ten, Sarah drives me home. I let myself into the apartment above the Anchor, stand in the dark kitchen, press my hands flat on the counter and breathe.
Protect her.
He texted Knox to protect me. I don't know what to do with that.
