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And that it was all my fault.
Going into the office had taken every ounce of force I had in me. Once my refuge, it was the last place I wanted to be. All sharp edges and cold steel and hard memories. None of her warmth, even though she resides in its walls.
But my inbox was filling up. My associates were concerned. Dalton alone had emailed three times, annoyed that after everything we’d gone through he was getting bounced to underlings. I didn’t care but I had to go in to manage it. Maybe, I reasoned, going through the motions would jump start the man I once was.
But deep inside, instinctively, I knew there was no going back. No, I’d known it the moment Evie Davis walked into my office and told me to go to hell. I was on the hook, speared through the heart, and hauled out of my isolation, struggling all the way. But now that I’ve felt the sun on my face I can never go back to the icy depths that were once my home.
One day at the office. It should have been manageable. What I hadn’t expected was that Evie would stride through my doors like she owned the place. I should have known that out of all my terrified underlings only she had the nerve, the gall. She broke down my barriers like a wrecking ball, obstinately and loving every minute of it.
And then those words: “I’m leaving”. God, the pain I’d felt. I’d almost wished she’d have stabbed me, let me bleed out on the carpet than come in there and throw it again in my face that I’d messed everything up. I didn’t think there was any saving us.
But now? Beyond all doubt, all reason, I have hope.
Visiting my father was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Bringing Evie into his vile orbit was bad enough. But sitting in that place, seeing what might have been my fate while hearing my own words come out of my father’s mouth? Hell.
Everything you touch turns to shit.
He wasn’t wrong then, but I made a promise to myself in that moment that one day he would be.
We get so few second chances in life. I may have played the fool, but I refuse to fuck this up again. We’d laughed together. We’d kissed. She promised to stay.
And now I need to spend every moment of the rest of my life proving that she made the right decision. And that starts with finding Jack. I need to make things right. Before I can truly call her mine. Before I can be worthy of her.
And until then we’ll have to stay apart.
But it’s coming.
Hope. I’ve never had much use for it. But now that I do, I have no idea how I went so long without it.
A week after our visit to the prison, I’m sitting in my office, staring at my computer screen and willing my eyes to stay open.
I’m just about to nod off regardless when Evie comes in and walks down my long aisle. It’s good timing. Just the sight of her perks me up.
“You need to downsize this office a bit,” she calls from about the halfway point. “I’m getting in my ten thousand steps just coming to see you a few times a day.”
I crack a groggy smile. “It was supposed to keep people from sticking their heads in. Easier to just send an email and then nobody’s bothering me all day.”
“You are one cranky motherfucker,” Evie says with a laugh. She finally reaches the desk and then recoils. “Jeez, you smell bad.”
“Strangers’ sweat and cheap cologne,” I confirm. “Oh and stale beer. A waitress got bumped and accidentally doused me.”
“Did you come right here?” she asks. “Have you even slept?”
“You want the truth?” I try to joke.
Evie’s eyebrows knit in concern. “Always,” she says.
“All right, all right. I came right here,” I say, setting down my pen and standing, stretching long arms over my head until my back cracks. “But look, this is the city that never sleeps. You would not believe the kind of parties that are happening on a Tuesday morning. Seriously. I just left a rave in an abandoned bodega in Williamsburg. It’s nuts.”
“But he wasn’t there?” Evie asks.
The grin slips off my face. “No,” I say. “He wasn’t.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Evie says. “There are only so many places in this city.”
I grunt a rueful laugh. “There are too many places in this damn city. And Jack could be at any one of them, at any time.”
“And still no luck on social media?”
