Texas.
My vision blurred so badly I almost missed the engraving on the inside of the bracelet.
Four words:You don’t need luck.
I made a sound I didn’t recognize.
Half sob.
Half laugh.
All heartbreak.
Because he had remembered.
Of course he had remembered.
The first night he wished me good luck before my game, and I told him I didn’t need it. The way he had seen my pride, my fear, my ridiculous determination, and turned it into something I could wear.
Not a trophy.
Not a prize.
Not proof I had bagged a better man than Tristan Vale.
A reminder.
That Drew had seen me.
Really seen me.
And I had let him walk out because I was too scared to say the one thing that might have made him stay.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, the bracelet clutched in my palm, and cried until my mother knocked once on the door and called my name like she had any right to enter the ruin she’d helped make.
“Isa, baby?”
I looked at the door through tears.
My voice came out broken.
“Go away.”
A pause.
Then, softer, offended. “Excuse me?”
I stood.
The bracelet dangled from my fingers.
And for the first time all morning, the fear burned clean into something else.
“No,” I said, louder now. “Actually, don’t go away.”
The door opened.
My mother stood there in a silk robe, coffee in hand, mouth already shaped around some polished little reprimand.
