Page 7 of Final Drive

She deserves it said out loud, by somebody brave enough to say it. I’m not there yet, and I’m running out of time to get there.

“Tomorrow,” I tell her, though she’s already gone under again.

I press my mouth to her forehead and let myself breathe her in once more. Then I close the door behind me and go downstairs to work out how to burn my father’s world down before he can burn ours.

CHAPTER THREE

Reese

Iwake up in my bed with no memory of getting here. The last thing I remember is the kitchen island, my cheek flat against Constitutional Law notes while the words went soft at the edges. Now I’m under my comforter in yesterday’s clothes with my shoes set neatly side by side at the door.

Gray did this.

I have a half-dreamed piece of it: being lifted, warmth and pine, the slow rhythm of somebody taking the stairs carefully. My own voice asking him to stay, then his saying he can’t.

I lie there trying to work out what that leaves me. He carried me upstairs and tucked the blanket around my shoulders, but he wouldn’t get into the bed. Apparently the line he won’t cross is somewhere between taking care of me and wanting me, and I have no idea which side of it he thinks I’m on.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it hoping it’s him, which is its own answer.

Quinton: Hey, you free this morning? I’m at Common Grounds working on the project. Could use your input on the market analysis.

I told him maybe on the coffee and never followed up. Now he’s handed me a reason to say yes that has nothing to do with whether I want to see him.

The smart thing would be to stay here, study, and wait for everyone to get back from the gym. But the house is too quiet and my head is too loud, and Gray’s I can’t keeps rattling around in there like a marble in a jar.

Me: Be there in 20.

I shower, pull on jeans and a soft sweater, and twist my hair up in a clip. No makeup, no effort. This is coffee with a classmate who doesn’t look at me and see pack logistics.

The kitchen still smells like breakfast when I come downstairs, bacon and coffee with something sweet underneath. There’s a plate wrapped in foil on the counter with a sticky note on top.

Eat something. B.

Bo, obviously.

I peel back the foil and find scrambled eggs and toast gone lukewarm. He must have made it before weights, because apparently a rest day off the water still requires all of them to find some new way to suffer voluntarily. Usually the plate would make me feel taken care of. This morning it feels like being managed instead.

Bo means it. I know he does. That’s almost the problem. Lately every kind thing they do comes with the same question underneath it, even when nobody says the words: Is Reese okay yet?

I eat a few bites at the counter, cover the plate again, and take my bag.

Common Grounds is a ten-minute walk from the team house, tucked into the corner of the student union where the business school runs into the athletics building. Between classes it’s a scrum, but the midmorning lull has emptied most of the tables. Quinton is already there with his laptop open and two cups in front of him.

He looks up and waves me over. “Wasn’t sure you’d show. You’ve been a ghost.”

“It’s been a weird few days.” I drop into the chair across from him, and he slides one of the cups toward me. Vanilla latte, same as always.

“Yeah, I figured.” He looks at me for a second longer than is polite. “You look like hell, Callahan.”

I snort. “Really feeling the love.”

“I mean that in a concerned way, not a mean way.” His grin comes easily, and something in my shoulders loosens before I can stop it. That’s the thing about Quinton. No eggshells, no careful handling. He just says it. “Seriously, though. How are you doing? Actually doing. Not the fine you give everybody else.”

“What makes you think I give everybody else fine?”

“You’ve got the look.” He gestures vaguely at my face. “The one people get when they’re holding it together with duct tape and denial.”

I laugh before I can help it. “That obvious?”