Chapter 33 Wes
THIRTY-THREE
WES
Austin got me as far as the truck before my self-respect finally crawled out of whatever hole it had been hiding in.
The prosthetic was back on, liner hastily adjusted, pain still snarling around the stump.
Every step across the packed gravel lot felt wrong, the angle off, the rhythm shot to hell.
Austin stayed glued to my side, one hand light on my elbow like he was trying to offer support without making it obvious.
“Last chance,” he said when we reached the driver’s side, breath puffing in the cold. “I can drive you. Swing back and grab my truck later.”
“I’ve got it.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted.
His mouth pressed into a line. “You don’t look like you’ve got it.”
“Then lie to me and say I do,” I muttered, popping the door. The movement tugged something ugly in my thigh, but I swallowed it down.
He didn’t move away. “Text me when you’re home, yeah?”
I hauled myself up into the driver’s seat, jaw clenched, every muscle screaming for me to pretend this was no big deal. The door shut with more force than necessary, cutting off the winter light and the sight of Austin standing there, worry all over his face before he turned and returned to work.
Silence snapped into place.
I just sat there, both hands braced on the wheel, heart racing like I’d sprinted a mile. The truck cab felt too small, air thick and stale. My leg throbbed in brutal pulses, each one sending a spike of static up through my hip and along my spine.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Nothing listened.
My hands were shaking with a traitorous tremble in my fingers as they tightened on the leather.
“Stop,” I whispered, to myself or my nerves or the whole damn situation, I didn’t know.
The sting behind my eyes hit without warning. One second I was gritting my teeth, the next my vision blurred at the edges, heat burning up from somewhere deep in my chest.
Not here.
You do not cry in the truck like a goddamn kid.
I sucked in a breath that scraped my throat raw and blinked hard, willing it back. A hot tear escaped anyway, tracking down over skin that had gone too cold.
“Fuck,” I bit out, swiping it away with the heel of my hand. The movement jolted my leg and pain flared. Another tear slid free, then another, like my body had decided to double down just to spite me.
I bowed my head until my forehead hit the steering wheel, breath sawing in and out of my lungs, shoulders tight enough that it hurt to breathe.
You thought you were back, didn’t you?
The thought came fast and vicious.
You thought you were that guy again. Boss man. Walking the site. Climbing stairs like it was nothing.
I saw them in my head, crystal clear: the crew crowding the landing, hands under my arms, someone grabbing the metal, the careful way they’d eased me down like I was a crate of glass. Austin’s voice talking too calmly, like he was trying not to spook a wild animal.
They had to peel you off the floor.
They had to take your leg off in front of everyone because you were deadweight with it on.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The image of my prosthetic being handed down the stairs like a misplaced tool turned my stomach. Faulty equipment. Boss’s leg is busted, toss it to the side.
A humorless laugh scraped out of me, more breath than sound.
You couldn’t even get up one flight without turning into a team project.
Clara’s face flashed up next. Her smile over the table at La Casita. The way her bedroom eyes had gone bright and proud when I’d told her I was going to the site. Look at you, boss man.
She deserved that guy. The one she thought she was looking at.
Not the one who sat on a half-built staircase while his crew disassembled him so he wouldn’t fall on his face.
My grip on the wheel tightened until my knuckles ached.
She walked away from a life where her entire job was propping up a man. She lost herself trying to hold someone else together. How could I hand her a fresh version of the same goddamn thing and call it love?
Love.
That was what this had started to feel like. Her in my bed. Her in my truck. Her hand in mine at the farm, in town. A day of errands and coffee and plans that had tasted suspiciously like a future.
You really believed it, didn’t you? whispered the cruelest part of my brain. One good day and you started thinking you were whole.
My throat closed up.
Tears burned and spilled over, hot and unwanted, blurring the view of the half-plowed lot and the skeletal frame of the building outside. I swiped at them again, angry at myself for not getting a lid on it faster.
Maybe you can fake it in the kitchen, on a chair, in bed with the lights low.
Out there? On stairs and plywood and steel?
You’re a liability. A hazard your own guys have to plan around.
Clara deserved a man who didn’t need to be peeled off plywood in front of his employees. The mere thought of it was a nail driven straight through my chest.
My vision narrowed to the arc of the dashboard, the curve of my hands, the faint tremor that wouldn’t stop. I took one more shuddering breath, tried to cram everything back into the box it had clawed its way out of. It didn’t fit. Not really. But I got it shut enough to function.
“Enough,” I muttered.
My fingers found the ignition, turned the key. The engine rumbled to life beneath me, familiar and grounding in a way my own body no longer was. I shoved the truck into gear and pulled out of the lot, my world narrowed to the line of the road and the tight, punishing band around my ribs.
I drove toward home with my jaw clenched and my vision tunneling and chest in a vise, clinging to the one clear thought that cut through the noise.
I had dared to believe I was whole again.
The universe had made damn sure I remembered exactly what I was instead.
The house was warm when I walked in, heat licking at my cheeks in a way that felt undeserved.
I forced my gait into something that looked like normal as I crossed the threshold, my keys biting into my palm. The stump burned where the socket rubbed wrong, and every step sent a little shock up my spine.
I pretended like it was nothing.
Clara sat at the kitchen table, laptop open and a scatter of books and printed reference photos spread around her.
Late light from the window caught the loose pieces of her hair, turning them copper at the edges.
She looked up the second the door shut, that easy, instinctive smile blooming before she had any idea what she was about to walk into.
“Hey, you,” she said, voice warm enough to slide right under my ribs. Her gaze swept over me, soft and appreciative in a way that used to make me stand taller. “How was your day, handsome?”
The words landed like gravel in my throat.
Handsome. The guy who had sat on his ass on a half-built staircase while his crew untangled him from his own leg. The guy who broke down and cried in his truck because stairs were too much to ask.
My jaw clenched.
“Fine.” The word came out flat and sharp at the edges.
I dropped my keys into the bowl by the door harder than I meant to. The metal hit ceramic with a loud crack that made us both flinch. Something in my hip twinged at the twist. I swallowed the sound that wanted to come out.
She straightened slowly, the smile slipping a notch as she took me in more closely. Her brows pinched, worry lighting up behind her eyes before I could dodge it.
“You okay?” she asked. “You look—”
“Long day,” I cut in, already angling my body past the table toward the living room. “I’m going to sit down.”
The tightness in my voice was evident, even to my own ears.
A chair scraped behind me. Her footsteps followed, light and stubborn. By the time I lowered myself onto the couch, she was there, arms folded around herself like she was resisting the urge to reach for me.
“Wes,” she said quietly. “Talk to me. Did something happen at the site?”
The question made my skin crawl.
The upstairs landing flashed behind my eyes—plywood, hands under my arms, the murmur of He shouldn’t be up there. Shame rose like heat, thick and suffocating. Her concern felt less like a hand offered and more like a spotlight pinned between my shoulder blades.
I latched onto irritation because it was easier to hold than fear.
“Not everything is a crisis I need to unpack with you, Clara.” The sentence snapped out before I could soften it.
Her head jerked back a fraction, like I’d reached out and physically pushed her. Hurt flared across her face, quick and unguarded, before something cooler slid in to cover it.
“Wow,” she said, a brittle little laugh escaping as she raised her palms. “Okay. I didn’t realize asking if you’re okay was micromanaging now.”
Guilt punched hard in my gut. The right move would have been to back up, to apologize, to tell her the truth instead of bleeding all over her with half of it.
“I’m tired,” I ground out, staring at some point over her shoulder because looking her in the eye felt dangerous. “That’s it. You don’t have to fix it.”
The second the words were out, I wanted them back.
You fucking asshole. She isn’t your triage nurse. She isn’t the enemy.
Her mouth pressed into a hard line. Color climbed her throat, high and hot, like anger was the only thing holding back something worse.
“I wasn’t trying to fix it,” she said, voice too even to be anything but forced. “I was trying to be your person for thirty goddamn seconds.”
That one landed square in the center of my chest.
My leg pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I shoved my fingers against the aching muscle above the socket like pressure on the pain would stall out all of it.
“I’m going to ice my leg,” I said, doubling down because running away was the only thing I seemed to be good at. “I’ll be fine.”
Her eyes went shiny for a heartbeat, then cleared in that eerie way I’d seen once before—on a front porch with a dress bag over her shoulder and a life unraveling behind her.
“Right,” she said coolly. “Great. I’ll get out of your way, then.”