Page 31 of Stay Scared

“I could’ve learned.”

“I asked you before I left.”

“You asked when you were already halfway out the door.”

“Because every earlier conversation became another argument about whether I loved you enough.”

“You did love me.”

“That didn’t make your grip looser.”

Cade stops, his gloved hand opening beside his thigh. “I didn’t know how to stop grabbing tighter every time I thought you were leaving.”

Nothing follows the admission. No defense arrives to soften it.

I look at the suitcase. “You still built this.”

“Because I never got to finish.”

“Finish what?”

“Telling you I fucked it up.”

The replica bedroom door opens wider through an automatic mechanism. Amber light spills across the hallway, but dark wood replaces the apartment walls beyond it, and the old neon sign for the Hollow Barrel glows over a row of empty booths.

Cade gestures toward it. “Our first date.”

“Very subtle.”

“Ash built the transition.”

“Of course he did.”

I enter the bar.

The reproduction catches enough of the place that memory fills in the rest. A long counter stretches across the far wall. Bottles reflect the low sconces, and the booth nearest the back faces the entrance.

The booth I always chose.

Cade crosses behind the bar and removes a bottle of whiskey. “You were twenty-two fucking minutes late.”

“You counted?”

“I thought you were standing me up.”

“I considered it from the parking lot.”

“You texted that you were five minutes away.”

“I was five minutes away from deciding.”

He sets two glasses on the bar.

“You wore the black dress with the zipper down the side.”

“You remember clothes better than most men.”

“You had ripped tights beneath it. The run climbed behind your left knee.”