Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Ten days after the barbecue, my phone lit up with Zoe’s face and the all-caps text she’d set as her own contact note:
DO NOT IGNORE ME
I was at my table, pretending to thumbnail a layout for Seris and Kael and mostly just smearing graphite around while I replayed Zarek’s face when he’d seen me in the orange dress.
I sighed and hit accept.
“Hey, Zo—”
“What the hell is going on with your husband?” she snapped.
So. No warm-up then.
My spine went straight. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I just got off the phone with Fletcher,” she barreled on, like I hadn’t spoken. “And I’m about ten seconds away from driving to your house, dragging Zarek out by his ear, and knocking his head against something hard until he can hear again.”
Heat shot through my veins. “What did Fletcher say?”
“He showed up to Down Home for takeout,” she said. “Ruby saw his uniform, they started talking calls, and then he mentioned he’s been riding the box with Zarek. Chloe…” Her voice dropped half an octave. “He said Zarek came into work with his chin swollen and half his jaw turning purple.”
My stomach dropped.
“Maybe he slipped,” I tried weakly. “We do live in a world where gravity exists—”
“Nice try,” she cut in. “Fletcher asked him about it, and he did that thing where he laughs and changes the subject. So, Fletcher went to Michael. And guess what Michael said?”
I already knew I wasn’t going to like it. “What?”
“That Cappy benched Zarek from fighting at the gym,” she said. “Two weeks ago. Told him he was done. So, Fletcher and Michael would really like to know where in the hell Zarek is getting punched in the face now. And so would I. Do you know anything?”
The words hit in layers.
Benched.
Fighting somewhere else.
Michael worried. Fletcher worried. Zoe furious.
And underneath all of that, the part that hurt the most.
Zarek had promised me no more fights.
My fingers tightened around the pencil until the wood creaked. “No,” I said. “I don’t… Zarek told me he wasn’t going back to the gym, now you’re telling me it’s even worse, that it’s escalated.”
“So, he didn’t tell you anything this week?” Zoe demanded. “No mysterious ‘gotta go, sparring’ texts? No limping? No ‘hey, I’m feeding the part of my soul that wants to get concussed’ monologues?”
Images flashed—Zarek at the barbecue, jaw still a little off-color, eyes clearer than they’d been in months, moving through the yard like a man who’d found air again. The way he’d looked at me. The way he’d told Evie congratulations like he meant it.
He’d seemed…better.
Less brittle around the edges. Less like a man made of straw and gasoline, waiting for a spark. But I’d called him twice, and he’d just texted me back that he was working double shifts. He didn’t have time to talk. So how in the hell would I know what he was doing?
“Chloe?” Zoe pushed. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” I said, voice thin. “I’m here.”
Silence stretched for a heartbeat, then two.
“I’m not trying to pile on,” Zoe said, softer now. “I just…they’re worried. I’m worried. You’re usually my early warning system with him. If he’s doing something this stupid and you didn’t know…” She trailed off.
“Then I’m not his early warning system anymore,” I finished for her. “Welcome to the consequences of me moving out.”
Ouch. That landed harder than I meant it to. It felt like I’d just hit my finger with a hammer, and it hurt.
Fear crawled up my throat, sharp and sour. “When did Fletcher see him?” I asked. “Today?”
“Yesterday,” Zoe said. “So, whatever he did, it was recent.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my sternum like I could tamp down the ache. I wanted to call Zarek. Yell at him. Demand answers. I wanted to grab my keys, drive straight to Jasper Creek, and beat on the front door until he opened it and I could catalog every bruise with my own eyes.
But that wasn’t my job anymore. Or was it? God, I fucking hated adult boundaries and shit. At what point was I saving a life and not just being co-dependent? I’d ask my therapist or ChatGPT, but they didn’t know my man the way I did.
“Say something,” Zoe said quietly. “You’re freaking me out with the silence.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “I want to drive over there and shake him. But I also… I can’t keep being the only one yanking him back from the edge. That’s not a sustainable process.”
“I know,” she said. “Believe me, I know.”
The thing was, I had a solid support system. I had my sisters. An entire Avery Avalanche who closed around me the second I started listing.
Who did Zarek have?
Yeah, he had friends. Good ones. But most of them were husbands or brothers or cousins of my sisters and friends. The social web of Jasper Creek often felt like it was woven around my family. He’d slotted into it because of me.
Take me out, and what did he have?
Michael. Fletcher. The guys at the station. Cappy. They all cared. But they weren’t the people he called in the middle of the night. I was.
I closed my eyes. “He needs help,” I whispered.
“Then maybe you two should talk,” Zoe said. “Again. With less martyrdom and more honesty. On both sides.”
“I can’t fix him,” I said, because if I didn’t say it out loud, I was going to forget. “He has to rescue himself.”
“I’m not asking you to fix him,” she said. “I’m asking you not to pretend you don’t care if he sets himself on fire.”
That landed.
Because I did care. Deeply. Stupidly. To the bone.
A memory rose, uninvited. Zarek driving from Dallas to Jasper Creek. Breaking into my house and pulling back the covers that I’d been hiding under. He’d taken one look around my house. The broken glass, my blood-covered foot, my vacant gaze, and damn near kidnapped me to Dallas.
Days later, he’d sat on the floor with me and said, “You need more help than I can give. Let’s find you a counselor who knows how to climb into this kind of dark with you.”
He’d put his life on hold to bring me back to the land of the living.
How did I look at that history and decide my hands were clean now?
“Chloe?” Zoe said again.
My eyes burned. “I have a deadline,” I said, because my brain is nothing if not annoying. “Edith is already breathing down my neck.”
“Okay, wild segue,” Zoe said. “But sure, I’ll buy that.” Her voice oozed sarcasm.
“Seris and Kael are stuck,” I said, ignoring her tone. “They’re…us. And I don’t know how to end their story without knowing if we have one.”
“You are such a dork. I know that makes sense to you, but you’re way over my head.”
I snorted out a laugh.
She was quiet for a beat. “I love you,” she said finally. “Whatever you decide.”
“I love you too,” I whispered.
We hung up.
The apartment felt too small for my thoughts. The walls were closing in, crowding me with memories and possibilities.
I stared at my drawing table. Seris and Kael stared back from half-finished pages. In the last spread, Seris stood on a rooftop watching Kael walk into a fight she couldn’t follow him into. Her eyes were all wild ink and unspoken words.
“I hope you have answers,” I told her. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
I sat down, picked up my pen, and started to draw.
Not the ending. Not yet.
But the conversation they needed to have.
As their lines took shape, so did the shape of what I already knew I was going to do.
When the clock on the stove blinked past four, I dropped the pen, grabbed my keys, and called Michael Rankin.
By the time I hung up, I knew exactly what time Zarek was getting off shift, and I knew exactly where I was going to be when he pulled into the driveway.
I wasn’t going to rescue him.
But I was damn sure going to stop pretending I didn’t have skin in this game.
I grabbed my bag and headed for Jasper Creek.
By the time his truck’s engine rumbled up the street, I’d worn a groove into the living room rug, erasing every vacuum track.
I’d let myself into the house with my key and my car was parked in “my” spot like it was any other Tuesday.
It felt like trespassing and coming home at the same time.
I heard the engine cut off. Heard the familiar creak of the truck’s driver’s side door and the dull thud when he shut it.
My heart tried to climb into my throat.
I walked to the foyer, crossed my arms to keep from fidgeting, and planted my feet.
The lock clicked. The door opened.
He stepped inside, his big hand still on the knob, and froze when he saw me.
For a second, surprise flared across his face. Then his mouth curved, quick and involuntary.
“Damn,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion and something else. “I was hoping for the orange dress.”
I arched a brow. “Well, what in the hell have you done lately to deserve me wearing the orange dress?”
His flinch was tiny, but I caught it.
I let my gaze sweep over him, not hiding the fact that I was cataloging his latest injuries. New bruise blossoming along his jawline—yellow at the edges, ugly purple at the center. A faint split at the corner of his mouth. The stiff way he held his shoulders.
It was ninety degrees outside and humid enough to swim through the air. He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt.
He hates long sleeves in the heat.
“Nice shirt,” I said lightly. “What are we hiding? New tattoos? Or just more reasons for Cappy to bench you?”
He flinched.
“Yeah, I’ve been talking to Michael.”
“Did you really come over here just to give me a hard time?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Truth was, I didn’t know. Part of me had come for a fight. Part of me had come to see with my own eyes that he was still breathing. The rest of me… had no idea what I was doing, I just knew staying away wasn’t an option anymore.
We stood there in the foyer, the silence between us thick with all the things we hadn’t said in months.
“I’m worried about you,” I said finally, dropping the sarcasm. “You promised you wouldn’t be in any more fights. Why did you go back on your word?”
Something in his expression shuttered. He shut the door gently behind him, like he needed the extra second to pull himself together.
“The fighting is…” He searched for the words, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck.
“It’s helping. Somehow. It’s feeding a part of me that hasn’t…
” He blew out a breath. “I can’t explain it, Chloe.
In the ring, it’s quiet. My head. I know what to do.
There’s an opponent, and there’s me, and there’s nothing else. No nursery. No…everything.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
My chest ached. “You really think that’s helping?” I asked. “Because from here it looks a lot like self-harm with betting.”
His mouth twisted. “I thought you’d be the first one in line to applaud if I found something that actually helped,” he said, frustration bleeding through. “If this was therapy or yoga or some shit that led to me being less of a wreck, you’d be standing there with pom-poms.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“I would,” I said. “I would be obnoxiously supportive. I would buy you the expensive yoga pants. The kind with the butt thong.”
He snorted.
“But this?” I gestured at his jaw, at his sleeves. “I don’t see this taking away your pain and bringing back the man I’ve always known and loved. I see it grinding you down into someone I don’t recognize.”
His eyes flashed. “I’ll never be that man again.” His voice fierce. “You know that. Are you the same woman you were before the miscarriages?”
The question landed like a fist to my sternum.
I opened my mouth to snap back, to deflect with a joke, and nothing came out. Just air and hurt.
I thought of the doctor’s office. The sterile smell. The way the OB had folded her hands and said the words “nonviable” and “scar tissue” and “you will never be able to carry a pregnancy to term” in such a kind voice that killed.
I thought of how I’d nodded and smiled and walked out of there, then thrown up as soon as I was home.
I thought of how I’d never told him. How I’d let him keep believing our future kids were a question of if, not a door that had already slammed shut.
“I know I’m not the same woman I thought I was when we got married,” I said quietly.
The first tear slid down before I could blink it back.
His whole body went still.
Then he moved.
Two long strides and I was in his arms, my face pressed against his chest, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head like he used to when the nightmares got bad.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice rough. “Hey, no. Don’t— This isn’t—” He swore under his breath, the sound vibrating against my cheek. “I have loved you since you were seven and stomped on my foot at the creek because I wouldn’t let you jump off the big rock.”
A wet laugh escaped me, half sob.
“I loved you when you were twenty-one and playing candy crush under your covers,” he went on, words tumbling out like he’d been holding them back for too long.
“I loved you when you couldn’t look in a mirror.
I loved you when you fell apart and when you started putting yourself back together.
I have loved you every day of our marriage, even when I was too far up my own ass to show it. ”
His arms tightened around me.
“I think you are the strongest woman I know,” he said fiercely. “I love you desperately. Nothing that’s happened has changed that. Not a single thing.”
I clung to the fabric of his shirt, breathing him in—soap, smoke, something metallic under it all. “I love you desperately too,” I whispered. “That’s…kind of the problem. I don’t know how to stand here and watch you bleed for strangers while you tell yourself it’s healing.”
He let out a shaky breath, his fingers curling into the back of my shirt like he was anchoring himself. I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek—fast, solid.
“Zarek, can’t there be another way?” I asked, pulling back just enough to see his face. My fingers came up to gently trace the fresh bruise along his jaw. “Some way for you to work through all of this that doesn’t involve someone trying to knock you unconscious?”
His eyes met mine. Up close, I could see how exhausted he was, but there was something else there too. Something that hadn’t been there in a long time.
Hope? Maybe. No, that wasn’t it.
I stroked his cheek, my thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. My lips parted on a breath I couldn’t quite catch.
“Maybe,” he said, and for once it didn’t sound like a dismissal. It sounded like a possibility he was actually considering.
We hung there for a second, suspended between the life we used to have and the wreckage of the one we’d been living.
Then he lowered his head, slow enough that I could have stepped back if I’d wanted to.
I didn’t.
His mouth met mine, warm and familiar. I drank in the heady, cherished scent of him. The kiss started soft, a question, then deepened when I answered, my hands sliding up into his hair as his arms wrapped fully around me.
God, it had been so long.
And it felt so right.