Chapter Twenty-Four #2
I try to answer, but another sob comes out instead, and his voice changes instantly.
The analyst disappears, and the man I adore takes over. “Hey?”
I lean my head back against the seat, my heart steadying at hearing his voice, but the tears still fall.
“I’m here, baby.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force air into lungs that have forgotten how. “I…”
“You don’t have to talk.” His voice is calm enough that I grab onto it. “I’ve got you.” Another sob tears through me. “I’ve got you, Sage,” he repeats, slower this time, like he’s laying each word down somewhere solid enough for me to stand on. “Stay with me, baby.”
“I can’t,” I choke out. “Ghost, I can’t.”
“You can.” No hesitation. No doubt. “You are the strongest badass I know.”
I press my forehead against the steering wheel, clutching the phone so tightly my hand hurts.
“Listen to me.” I nod before realizing he can’t see it. “Sage?”
“I’m here.”
“Good.” His voice stays impossibly steady. “That’s all I need right now.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, another sob catching somewhere between my chest and my throat. “Everything’s gone,” I whisper. “Ghost… it’s all gone.”
“No.” The word lands with quiet certainty. “It isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
My laugh comes out broken. “How?”
“Because I know you.”
Silence settles between us, broken only by the ragged sound of my breathing.
“You built this case from an idea scribbled on a piece of paper,” he says. “You fought for every volunteer, every sponsor, every family that walked through those doors. One corrupt politician doesn’t get to erase that.”
My tears spill faster. “Calloway’s trying.”
“Yeah, but you won’t let him.”
“What if he wins?”
Ghost is quiet for a moment. “Then he’ll have to get through me first.”
My breath catches. “Ghost…”
“Listen to me.” His voice doesn’t rise. “You’re not doing this by yourself.
” I close my eyes. “You have me.” Another tear slips free.
“You have the club.” My fingers tighten around the phone.
“You have every person who’s watched you fight for them over the last three years.
” His voice softens even further. “So, you stop carrying this by yourself.”
I shake my head even though he can’t see it. “I d-don’t know how.”
“You don’t have to know how.” There’s the sound of a door opening on his end of the line, followed by the unmistakable rumble of a motorcycle firing to life.
“Ghost…”
“Where are you?”
“The p-parking lot… at work.”
“Stay exactly where you are.” My heart stumbles. “I’m coming to get you.”
I let out a shaky breath, wiping at my face with the heel of my hand. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I kn-now.” My voice cracks around the words. “But, thank you anyway. I appreciate that you care enough to drop everything. But you don’t have to come.”
He doesn’t answer straightaway. “Sage…”
“I just…” I close my eyes, trying to gather my thoughts into something that resembles a sentence. “I think I need to go home.”
“I’m still coming.”
A watery laugh escapes me. “Ghost.”
“Baby.”
I smile despite myself. “I need to open a bottle of wine.”
“Done.”
“A really cheap bottle of wine.”
“I’ll buy you a better one.”
I shake my head. “No. This is absolutely a cheap wine kind of catastrophe.” The corner of my mouth twitches.
“Then I’m bringing the cheap wine.”
“You’re missing the point, Ghost.”
“Probably.”
I let the silence sit for a second before speaking again. “I need to sit with this. I need to pull it apart and figure out how I’m going to fix it before I let myself believe it can’t be fixed.”
He sighs down the line. “Then we’ll do that together.”
The offer settles somewhere warm in the middle of everything that’s hurting.
“God!” I laugh quietly, tears still clinging to my lashes. “I love you for saying that.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “I know.”
I roll my eyes. “That was unbearably smug.”
“It was.”
My smile grows. “See? This is exactly why you can’t come over.”
A soft chuckle rumbles down the line. “Because I agreed with you?”
“Because you are… distracting.”
“Distracting.” I can hear the smile in his tone.
“Mm-hmm…”
“I’m trying to work out whether I should be offended or flattered.”
“Definitely flattered.”
His laugh is quiet, but it’s there. “Go on.”
I groan, knowing exactly what he’s doing. “Ghost…”
“Elaborate.”
“You have one of the best brains I’ve ever come across.” I lean back against the headrest, finally feeling like I can breathe again. “But every time you’re in the same room as me lately, I stop thinking about whatever I’m supposed to be doing.”
He goes suspiciously quiet.
“See?” I say.
“I’m choosing my next words very carefully.”
I finally smile. “Smart man.”
“Because my first answer involved reminding you what happened the last time we were alone together.”
Heat blooms across my cheeks despite everything. “Exactly my point.”
“So, I’m a distraction.” His laugh comes easier this time.
“An infuriatingly attractive one.”
He chuckles. “I’ll take that.”
I smile once more, letting my forehead rest against the steering wheel again. “Give me tonight.”
His answer is immediate. “Done.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll need that ridiculously beautiful brain of yours.”
“You’ll have it.”
I tilt my head, raising my brow. “And probably the rest of you too.”
“That’s generally how it works.”
I snort out a laugh. “You really are getting cocky.”
“No.” His voice softens again, the teasing giving way to something steadier. “Just confident.”
“About what?”
He hesitates, but then his answer comes out smooth as silk. “Us.”
My heart flutters, and I sink into my chair. “Okay, Casanova, I’m going to go home, drink my wine, have a bath, and try not to think about you.”
He chuckles. “All right. But if you need me, anytime, you call, okay?”
“Deal.”
“And send me a picture of you in the tub.”
I snort out a laugh, finally feeling like the weight on my chest has lifted. “You’re a dork.”
“Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
I inhale sharply and nod. “Yeah, yeah, you are. Have a good night.”
“You too, Objection.”
I smile at his nickname for me and hang up.
The drive home should have taken twenty minutes.
It could have been two.
It could have been two hours.
I honestly couldn’t tell you.
Traffic ebbs and flows around me, brake lights bleeding red across the windshield every time another line of cars grinds to a halt. Someone behind me leans on their horn. A bus pulls into the lane beside me, blocking out the afternoon sun for a few seconds before lumbering away again.
I barely register any of it. My hands stay locked around the steering wheel hard enough that my knuckles ache.
The folder Sandy handed me rides on the passenger seat, sliding back and forth every time I stop at another set of lights.
I catch myself looking at it over and over again.
Not opening it.
Just looking.
As though staring at the folder long enough might somehow change what’s inside.
Outside my window, Las Vegas refuses to care that my world has just imploded. People queue outside cafés. Construction workers laugh over something as they cross the road. A couple stands outside a florist arguing over which bunch of flowers to buy.
Life just… keeps going.
The unfairness of it settles deep inside my chest.
My apartment greets me with the smell of garlic and fresh basil before I even have the door fully open. For one stupid second, my body relaxes on instinct. Home.
Music hums softly from the little speaker Piper insists makes cooking ‘an experience,’ even though she’s still incapable of explaining that sentence in a way that makes any sense to me, considering she can’t hear the music.
The saucepan bubbles gently on the stove.
Someone who didn’t know better could walk into this apartment and think today was completely ordinary.
I wish I were someone who didn’t know better.
Piper looks up from the kitchen just as I close the door behind me.
Her smile starts automatically, but it never reaches the finish line.
The moment her eyes land on my face, it disappears.
I cross the room before she can ask another question, and she barely has time to put the wooden spoon down before my arms are around her.
For a second, she freezes in surprise.
“What happened?” she says in her muted tone.
I’m tempted to tell her everything—every accusation, lie, every ounce of fear clawing at my chest. Instead, I force a smile that fools neither of us.
‘Long day.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Sage.’
I wrap my arms around her again, and she hugs me back immediately.
Tightly.
Like she’s already decided that whatever happened, we’re surviving it together. When I pull away, I spot the dress hanging over one of the dining chairs. Black. Simple. The one she’d shown me three days ago for dinner with her university friends.
I point toward it. ‘You’re still going?’