Page 96 of Hard to Lose

And I realize I just did something worse than leaving him when this is over.

I gave Gunner hope that there could be more.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Gunner

“Yeah. Let me get it. I think I brought it home with me,” I say to Ellie as I stumble through the house, half asleep but on a high from trying to process last night.

The low of Joey.

My confused feelings.

Then coming home to Chase.

I love her. Fucking love her. It feels like a weight off my chest to be able to say it out loud all while knowing she feels the same.

“I saw it under your arm when you left,” Ellie adds, having no clue I’m over here in a love fest of my own. “But that was like three or four days ago.”

“Shit,” I mutter as I stub my toe.

“That good of a morning, huh?” She chuckles.

“Yes. I’m just tired. You know better than to call me this early.” I shuffle through the papers I set on the console when I walk in the front door. “Not there,” I mutter to myself and run a hand through my hair as I yawn. Then I head to the kitchen counter to see the pile I set down when I came in the house last night, but the rosters aren’t there either.

“Where was Chase?” she asks.

“What do you mean where was Chase?”

“I mean, I’m sure that’s where you set the folder down, because no doubt you walked inside and went straight to her since you two lovebirds can’t keep your hands off each other.”

I roll my eyes but she does have a good point, so I head into the second bedroom to the desk Chase works at. I start shuffling through the small stack of my stuff on the corner, accidentally knocking over her bag.

“Shit.” The contents come spilling out. “One sec, Ell. I knocked something over.”

“Figures,” she teases as I set the phone down.

I’m halfway through putting the disarray of folders back into her bag when something catches my eye.

It’s an orange envelope on the floor next to my foot. I freeze as memories collide with the sudden confusion roiling around inside of me.

There’s no way.

It can’t be.

It’s a common envelope.

It’s merely a coincidence.

Yet when I pick it up, when I see my handwriting on the front of it and my name in the upper left-hand corner, my whole world lifts off its axis and crashes back down in a completely different location.

All the air is sucked out of the room as a suffocating, confusing feeling dizzies my head.

I can’t breathe.

My pulse pounds in my ears.

I can’t think.