Page 5 of The Quiet After The Fall

Owen picked up his wine and settled back into his chair. He’d said his piece and meant it and he was done. Nothing left for him to say.

He had Sawyer. He had his reason.

I had nothing.

My father poured the rest of the wine into his glass, set the empty bottle down, and slid his fingertips along the rim.

“I’ve already arranged dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow night. Moretti, his wife, Ella. All four of us.”

Owen glanced at me with something like sympathy in his eyes. “And if Knox refuses?”

My father scoffed. “Knox will do what needs to be done. Won’t you, son?”

I made them wait a few breaths while we all sat in silence. My mother’s eyes darted from her wine glass to me, Owen flat out stared, and my father was sliding a bite of mashed potatoes between his lips like he already knew the answer to his question.

The worst part was that he was right.

I thought about saying no. I sat with the word in my mouth for a moment, imagined what it would cost me. The company. The contracts. The careful, fragile scaffolding my father had spent years rebuilding while drinking himself half to death in the process.

I thought about my mother’s shaking hands. The way she’d gone somewhere else behind her eyes. The way she may not handle another fracture in our foundation.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

Owen looked down at his plate. I didn’t know if he was relieved or disgusted. In the end, it didn’t matter what he thought. I’d always do what needed to be done, even if it gutted me in the process.

My father raised his glass in my direction, giving the smallest possible gesture of acknowledgment, and drank.

I reached for my own wine and finished it in one long gulp. The rest of the dinner was quiet. My mother stood to clear the dishes, and Owen announced he had to leave, that he had plans. My father moved on from wine to whiskey, eventually heading into his study.

And I sat there, trying not to think about what tomorrow would bring.

I opened my app and watched Sawyer’s little blue dot across town, exactly where it was supposed to be, knowing she was completely unaware that I’d just agreed to something that was going to destroy us both.

Chapter 2

Sawyer

Three days.

That’s how long I’ve been standing behind the front desk, pretending I have my shit together. Smiling at guests, answering phones, transferring calls to rooms, greeting coworkers like everything’s fine. Three days of eating half a granola bar over the sink and letting it sustain me for an entire day. Three days of lying in bed at two in the morning, staring at the dust on my ceiling fan like it will suddenly come alive and start talking to me.

Three days of watching Knox’s name light up my phone and ignoring it.

He called me five times the first night. Three times the second day, spread out enough so it would seem like he wasn’t spiraling. I knew it was bullshit.

Then he texted. Again and again.

Talk to me.

Please, Sawyer.

It’s not what you think.

Please.

I left him on read each time.

Then there was nothing for twelve hours, which had me pacing my apartment, stomach in knots.