Chapter 15
Avery
Avery pushed open the door of Sweet Treats, the bell chiming overhead as she stepped into the cool afternoon air.
The sky was overcast, the kind of gray that made the whole town feel muted.
She told herself she needed to get errands done, needed to get out of her own head, needed to stop replaying the way Noah had looked at her before he left last night.
She crossed the street toward the small row of shops, her tote bag slung over her shoulder. The sidewalk was quiet. A few cars rolled by, slow and steady, but each one made her shoulders tense.
She tried to shake it off.
Just nerves. Just exhaustion. Just… everything.
She stopped at the hardware store first, picking up lightbulbs and a new dustpan. Then the pharmacy for aspirin and a pack of hair ties. Normal errands. Normal tasks. Normal life.
But every time she stepped back outside, the air felt heavier. Like someone had just been standing where she was. Like eyes brushed her skin and vanished before she could turn.
A dark sedan idled at the corner. She glanced at it once, twice. The driver didn’t look her way. Didn’t move. Didn’t do anything wrong.
Still, something in her chest tightened.
She told herself she was imagining it. She told herself she was fine.
She didn’t believe it.
Needing to keep moving, Avery cut through the small lot behind the diner, her tote bag bumping against her hip. Voices drifted from the far side, low, rough, threaded with laughter. She slowed without meaning to.
A group of men stood near a line of motorcycles, leather cuts dark against the overcast sky. The backs of their vests were identical: the same emblem Noah wore, the same bold lettering curved across the shoulders. Bloodline Saints MC.
They moved with an ease that made her stomach tighten, like they belonged to the same rhythm, the same unspoken rules.
One leaned against a bike, another adjusted something on his handlebars, another raised his arms, stretching.
She didn’t know their names. Didn’t know their faces.
But she knew the type: men who watched everything, even when they pretended not to.
And then she saw him.
Noah stood slightly apart from the others, but they angled toward him without realizing it — like gravity pulled them his way. His cut hung open, the same emblem stamped across his back, the same patches stitched along the front.
He looked… different here. More grounded. More sure. Like this was a world he understood in a way she never had.
He scanned the street once, quick and precise, before turning back to the man speaking to him.
Avery recognized the movement, the way his eyes swept corners, windows, and rooftops.
The way his shoulders stayed loose but ready.
The way he shifted his stance like he was trained to react before he thought.
Military. It hit her all at once. He wasn’t the kid she remembered. He was someone harder now, steadier, shaped by years she hadn’t been here to see.
Seeing him like that made something old and fragile inside her twist.
One of the men said something, and Rook’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close. The others reacted instantly, like they’d been waiting for it. A few chuckled. One clapped him on the back. Another nodded like Rook’s approval meant something.
He stood there so easily among them, steady and sure, like this was the version of him the world had shaped in her absence.
Like they’d earned pieces of him she’d never gotten back. The thought hit harder than it should’ve. She had no right to feel that. Didn’t stop her from feeling it anyway.
He belonged with them. He fit. He was… home.
Avery’s chest tightened.
She didn’t know how long she stood there before Rook’s gaze lifted and found her.
The look wasn’t long, but it hit like a hand around her ribs, firm, unyielding, familiar in a way that made her knees feel unsteady. He used to look at her like that. Like he was memorizing her. Like he didn’t know how not to.
Heat crawled up her throat, ridiculous and unwanted.
He didn’t startle. He didn’t look away. He just… saw her.
Something flickered across his face. Something she didn’t have a name for anymore.
Rook’s jaw flexed once before he turned back to the group, the moment slipping away as quickly as it came.
Avery forced herself to move, her legs carrying her toward the coffee shop even though her heart felt like it had been left behind in the parking lot.
The bell over the coffee shop door chimed as Avery stepped inside, the warm smell of espresso and baked sugar wrapping around her. Normally, it would’ve soothed her. Today, it barely touched the tightness in her chest.
She ordered a latte she didn’t really want and moved to the small table near the window, trying to pretend she wasn’t still rattled from earlier. She pulled out her notebook, flipped it open, and stared at the blank page like it might tell her what to do next.
It didn’t.
She took a sip of her drink. Too hot. Too bitter. Too much.
People came and went — a couple of students, a man in work boots, a woman with a stroller. Normal. Ordinary. Safe.
So why did she feel off-balance?
Avery tried to focus on her list of things Sweet Treats needed. Flour. Sugar. Coffee. Cleaning supplies. But her mind kept drifting back to the bakery, to Noah’s voice, to the way he’d looked at her before he walked out.
She closed the notebook with a quiet snap.
She needed distance. She needed to stop feeling seventeen again, breathless and stupid over a boy who’d never asked her to stay. Except he wasn’t a boy now. And the way he’d looked at her—steady, unreadable, too much—made something old and fragile inside her ache.
She needed air.
Outside, the sky had dimmed toward evening, the streetlights flickering on one by one. Avery walked down the sidewalk, her tote bag bumping against her hip, the cool air brushing her cheeks. The town was calm, familiar in a way she’d forgotten she missed.
She turned the corner toward Sweet Treats… and paused.
A dark sedan sat at the edge of the block, engine off, windows tinted. It wasn’t unusual. Cars parked everywhere. People ran errands, stopped for dinner, visited friends.
But something about it tugged at her.
She’d seen a car like that earlier. Same color. Same shape. Same tint.
Maybe it wasn’t the same one. Maybe she was tired. Maybe she was being ridiculous.
She kept walking.
Her pulse didn’t settle.
Fear threaded through her ribs, and beneath it, embarrassingly, the instinctive thought she hated herself for. Noah would know what to do. She shoved the thought away, but it clung to her like the chill in the air.
The sedan didn’t move, didn’t start, didn’t do anything at all.
But she felt its presence like a weight between her shoulder blades until she finally turned onto her street and Sweet Treats came into view.
The lights inside Sweet Treats glowed softly against the dimming street, a small pocket of warmth in the growing dusk.
Avery stopped in front of the bakery, exhaling shakily. She told herself she was imagining things. Told herself she was safe. Told herself she wasn’t being watched.
By the time she locked up that night, the unease still clung to her skin.
She told herself she was safe as she climbed the stairs to her apartment, but the feeling didn’t fade.
Because the truth settled deeper, quieter, harder to ignore: she didn’t feel safe. Not unless he was near.