Chapter 5 #2
“Thanks. We've been playing together for a few years now.
It's a good gig.” I was rambling, filling the silence with words that didn't matter because silence meant I'd have to face the weight of this moment.
“June's the bassist, she's been keeping me sane.
Luca's the guitarist, he's an idiot but he's talented. We play all over the city, mostly smaller venues like this, but it pays the bills.”
Rook just looked at me, and I could see the frustration building behind his eyes. He knew what I was doing. He'd always been able to tell when I was deflecting, even back in high school when I'd been better at hiding it.
“Why are you here?” I asked, because asking questions was easier than answering them. “I mean, I'm glad you are, obviously, but how did you even find me?”
“I've been looking for you.” His voice was controlled, measured, but there was an edge underneath it that said he was working hard to keep it that way. “For a long time.”
“Oh.” It was the only word I could get out, and it sounded pathetic even to my own ears. “I didn't know. I mean, I didn't think you'd—”
“Didn't think I'd what?” Rook leaned forward slightly, and I could see the frustration breaking through the control now. “Didn't think I'd care that you vanished without a word? Didn't think I'd want to know why you left? Didn't think I'd spend years trying to figure out what I did wrong?”
“You didn't do anything wrong,” I said, and it came out too quiet, too sincere, stripping away the humor I'd been hiding behind. “Rook, it wasn't about you.”
“Then what was it about?” He was staring at me with an intensity that made me want to look away, made me want to run, made me want to tell him everything and nothing at the same time.
“Because one day we were fine, and the next you were gone. No explanation, no goodbye, just an empty house and years of wondering what the hell happened.”
I wanted to tell him.
But the words stuck in my throat. And even if I could get them out, what then? He'd look at me with pity, or worse, he'd try to help, and I couldn't let him do that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“It's complicated.”
“That's not an answer.” Rook's frustration was palpable now, bleeding through every word. “You don't get to show up again after all this time and tell me it's complicated. I deserve better than that.”
He was right. He deserved better than deflection and half-truths and the version of me that kept everything locked down tight. He'd always deserved better than what I'd given him, which was part of why I'd left in the first place.
“I know,” I said quietly. “You do. I just — I don't know how to explain it right now. It's a lot, and we're in a bar, and I have another set in two hours, and I can't—”
I stopped, because my voice was starting to shake and that was absolutely not allowed. I touched the bracelet on my wrist without thinking about it.
Rook's eyes tracked the movement, and I saw confusion flicker across his face before he looked back up at me. He didn't ask about it, but I could tell he'd filed it away as another piece of the puzzle he was trying to solve.
“I'm not asking you to explain everything right now,” he said, and his voice had gone quieter too, some of the frustration bleeding into something that sounded more like exhaustion. “I'm just asking you to acknowledge that you left and it mattered. That I mattered.”
“You did.” The words came out before I could stop them, raw and honest in a way I hadn't meant to be.
“You mattered. You still—” I stopped myself before I could finish that sentence, before I could admit that he still mattered more than he should, that I'd carried him with me through every bad year and every worse night.
“You deserved a better goodbye than what I gave you.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. Couldn't tell if he believed me or if he was just tired of trying to pull answers out of someone who'd spent years perfecting the art of not giving them.
Then he pulled a napkin toward him from the stack sitting near the drinks, grabbed a pen from his jacket pocket, and wrote on it with deliberate strokes. He slid the napkin across the bar to me, and I looked down to see a phone number written in his clean, precise handwriting.
“Use it or don't,” he said, standing up from the barstool. “But if you do, I'm done chasing ghosts.”
He turned and walked away before I could respond, disappearing into the crowd with his shoulders set in that particular way that meant he was holding himself together by sheer force of will.
I watched him go, the napkin sitting on the bar in front of me like a dare, and tried to figure out how I was supposed to breathe when my chest felt like it was caving in.
I'd spent years telling myself that Rowan Kincaid belonged to another life.
That the version of me he'd known was gone and couldn't be recovered.
I'd convinced myself that staying away was the right choice, that it was better for both of us if I just let him move on and build something that didn't include me.
And now his phone number was sitting in my hand, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
The last set was a blur. I went through the motions, hit all the right beats, kept the rhythm steady while my brain spiraled through every second of that conversation at the bar.
June kept looking at me with concern between songs, and Luca tried to catch my eye a few times like he wanted to check if I was okay, but I just kept playing.
Kept moving. Kept pretending I was fine.
By the time we finished and packed up our gear, my arms were shaking and my head was pounding. I helped load everything into June's van, waved off their offers to grab late-night food, and drove home in silence with the napkin sitting in my jacket pocket like a live wire.
The apartment was dark when I got home, everyone already asleep, and I stood in the kitchen for a long time staring at nothing.
My phone was in my hand before I'd fully decided to pull it out, the napkin unfolded on the counter in front of me, Rook's number staring back at me in the dim light from the stove.
I could text him. Could call him. Could try to explain everything I hadn't been able to say at the bar. Could open a door to a conversation that terrified me more than anything else in my life.
Or I could put the napkin away and pretend tonight hadn't happened. Go back to the life I'd built without him and let him move on properly this time.
I touched the bracelet again.
You mattered. You still—
I hadn't finished that sentence at the bar, but the truth of it sat heavy in my chest anyway. He still mattered. He'd always mattered. And maybe that was exactly why I should put the napkin away and let this go.
But I didn't. I just stood there in the dark kitchen with his number in front of me and the weight of years pressing down on my shoulders, and I let myself imagine what it would be like to reach out. To tell him the truth. To find out if the person I'd been back then was still worth remembering.
I picked up the napkin and folded it carefully, sliding it into my wallet where I wouldn't lose it. Tomorrow I'd figure out what to do with it. Tomorrow I'd decide if I was brave enough to use it or if I was going to keep running from the one person who'd ever made me feel like I could stop.