Chapter 14
ETHAN
The silence in the car is thick with everything we just did and everything we didn’t say.
Lila’s hair is a mess, her lips are swollen, and there’s a faint pink flush climbing her chest that hasn’t faded yet. She looks satisfied, but she also looks like she’s waiting for the next blow to land. It bothers me more than it should.
I grip the steering wheel tighter and glance over at her. She’s tucked into the passenger seat like she’s trying to shrink into the upholstery. Not scared. Just self-contained again. It’s the same withdrawal I clocked earlier.
That realization needles at me in a way I don’t enjoy.
I don’t mind resistance when it’s honest, and I don’t mind distance when it’s earned, but this feels like she’s closing a door without slamming it, careful and quiet, like she doesn’t want to provoke anything.
I don’t need to be handled carefully. I don’t like being handled at all.
I clear my throat and shift the car out of park. “You hungry?”
“No,” she says quickly, too quickly, and she keeps her eyes fixed on the dark ribbon of road ahead.
I nod. “Alright.”
The engine hums low as we pull away from the overlook, tires catching the curve of the road as it winds down toward the city.
The lights below are scattered and bright, all of it distant enough to feel unreal, and the contrast irritates me.
Twenty minutes ago, she was gasping my name with her hands fisted in my jacket, and now she’s sitting there like she’s already halfway gone.
I don’t like the speed of the shift. I don’t like how easily she snaps back into control, like nothing just cracked open between us. It makes me feel like I imagined part of it, and I don’t imagine things.
Silence settles in the car, thick enough to notice, and I let it sit longer than is comfortable. I want to see if she’ll break it. She doesn’t. Her shoulders are squared, posture neat, the kind of composed that reads like armor if you know what you’re looking at.
I tap my thumb against the wheel. “Where do you want me to take you?”
She exhales, slow and careful, like she’s been bracing for that. “Home. I’m meeting some friends.”
I keep my eyes on the road, but my grip tightens again. “Now?”
“Yes.”
It’s not the answer that bothers me. It’s the timing, and the way she says it like a line she’s rehearsed. I glance at the clock on the dash. It’s late, but not unreasonable, and I know better than to pretend logistics are the real issue.
“Who?” I ask.
Her head turns just enough for me to see her profile. “Friends.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She folds her arms, defensive without being dramatic. “It’s not a question I need to answer.”
There it is. The line in the sand. I feel it immediately, a sharp irritation that crawls up my spine and settles behind my eyes. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to.
“I don’t like the idea of you going off alone after what happened earlier,” I say. “Someone tried to hurt me. That puts you in the frame too.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not the point.”
She turns fully toward me now, and the walls are back up, solid and familiar. “Then what is?”
I keep my gaze forward. “You just told me you needed space,” I say. “Fine. I heard you. But we’re not doing that thing where you disappear again and leave me guessing who you’re with or whether you’re safe.”
Her lips press together. “I’m not disappearing. I’m going home.”
“With people I don’t know. At night. After you yanked me out of the way of a speeding car.”
She doesn’t blink. Not once. “Ethan. You don’t get to police where I go or who I see just because we’re having sex.”
It’s as if she knows where to aim her words and she’s doing it because she wants me to pull back. I take a moment. “It isn’t just sex.”
Her mouth twitches, like she might argue, then flattens. “It’s intense, and it’s good. But I’m still me. And I still have my life.”
I exhale through my nose and adjust my grip on the wheel, forcing my hands to loosen before they do something stupid. I don’t want to scare her, and I don’t want to give her another reason to pull back, but I also refuse to pretend this is nothing.
“I’m not trying to own you,” I say. “I’m trying to understand why you’re pulling away this fast.”
Her shoulders rise and fall. “Because intensity doesn’t mean security. Because I’ve been here before. Because I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I let someone else set the terms of my life again.”
That one stings, and I let it, because she’s not wrong to say it. She just isn’t right to say it to me.
“I’m not your ex,” I say.
“I know,” she replies, and that’s somehow worse. “That’s why this is harder.”
We drive the rest of the way with the tension sitting between us, not explosive, just dense and unresolved.
I watch the street signs roll past and commit the route to memory out of habit, even though I already know it.
She’s quiet now, her gaze fixed forward again, and the space between us feels wider than the seat would suggest.
When I pull up in front of her place, I don’t get out of the car. Neither does she. The engine idles, as I wait for her to look at me, but she doesn’t.
I grip the steering wheel tighter and glance over at her.
She’s tucked into the passenger seat like she’s trying to shrink into the upholstery.
She doesn’t look scared, though, if anything, it’s like she’s doing damage control.
It’s the same withdrawal I clocked at the office, except this time, I’m part of the reason she’s retreating.
I breathe through the urge to grip the wheel until my knuckles crack. “I know you’re not in the best headspace right now, Lila.”
“Do you?” she tiredly asks.
I talk through the knot in my throat, because the words need to come out.
“I’m not trying to control you,” I say. “But I care. That’s not optional now.
So if I sound like an asshole, it’s because I don’t like not knowing who’s in your life or how easily someone could take a swing at you and I wouldn’t even know where to look. ”
She exhales, shoulders slumping just slightly. “I didn’t mean to make this hard.”
“I know.”
We sit there for a second. The streetlights cast long shadows across the hood, and she finally looks over.
“I’m not running,” she says softly. “I just need a second to feel normal again.”
That’s fair.
She gathers her bag but doesn’t reach for the door right away.
“I’ll text you,” she says.
“Do that.”
She pauses, like she might say more, then opens the door and steps out. She doesn’t look back.
I watch her go, watch the sway of her hips and the lift of her chin and the exact second her body language shifts into something cooler, something private.
She left like this whole connection between us was a switch she’s flipped off without warning.
I sit there a while after she’s gone, hands still on the wheel, eyes locked on the empty passenger seat, and I feel the shape of the distance she just put between us settle somewhere sharp under my ribs.
The realization that she’s already started pulling away has begun settling in, and somehow I can’t help thinking she’s doing it because she thinks it’ll be good for us.
So…what am I doing that’s making her think this way?
I drive home on muscle memory and park in the garage without registering the ride, then I walk into a penthouse that still smells like her shampoo and something warmer underneath it.
I drop my keys on the counter, loosen my tie, and open my laptop because that’s what I do when things get loud in my head.
Work has always been the cleanest way to quiet the noise.
Tonight it doesn’t work.
I read the same paragraph three times and retain none of it, then I switch files and lose ten minutes staring at a spreadsheet that should be simple.
My phone stays face down on the desk, and I don’t check it because checking it would mean admitting I’m waiting.
I pour a drink, take one sip, and set it aside untouched.
She said she wasn’t running. I believe that.
She also said she needed space, and I agreed, and I meant it. Consent doesn’t stop mattering because I want something more than she’s ready to give. Still, the absence sits wrong, like a pulled thread I can’t ignore.
I give up sometime after midnight and go to bed alone, which is rare and irritating, and I wake up too early with the sense that something’s already gone off schedule.
At the office the next morning, Lila is exactly what she promised she’d be.
Perfectly professional.
She’s efficient, focused, and pleasant in the way that means nothing leaks. Her tone is even, her reports are tight, and she doesn’t linger in doorways or make unnecessary comments. She doesn’t avoid me, which would be easier to read. She simply doesn’t offer anything extra.
It’s like watching someone close a door without slamming it.
I try to catch her at lunch, not to corner her but to reset the temperature, and when I step out of my office she’s already halfway to the elevators. I call her name once. She doesn’t hear me…or pretends not to. The doors close.
That’s new.
I take the stairs instead of waiting, two at a time, and by the time I reach the lobby I see her crossing toward the deli next door. I tell myself I’m just curious, that I’ll walk past and keep going, but my feet angle after her before I finish the lie.
I stop just inside the door and scan the room, then I see her at the counter with a man I don’t recognize. He’s too close. Not friendly-close. Familiar-close. He’s smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes, and she’s stiff, shoulders pulled in, bag clutched against her side.
I move before I think better of it.
I’m three steps away when he reaches for her hand. That’s it.
“Hey,” I say, sharp enough that half the room turns. “Get your hand off her.”
The guy looks over his shoulder, startled, then annoyed. “Who the hell are you?”
I don’t take my eyes off his fingers wrapped around her wrist. “The last warning you’re getting.”
Lila turns fully now, eyes wide, color draining from her face. “Ethan—”
The man tightens his grip. “She’s busy.”
I do it like it’s a form of precision work, like breaking him apart is something I’ve trained for. His knuckles crack as I pull. First the index. Then the middle. His ring finger is slower to go because he resists. I twist just enough to make him wince, then strip the last finger free.
The deli falls quiet.
No one dares interrupt. The register dings somewhere behind us, a tinny sound that only makes the stillness sharper. I feel the tension bleed off Lila as soon as I remove him from her, and that small change is enough to flood me with rage.
He jerks his hand back like I burned him and takes a full step forward, chest puffed, chin raised.
He’s shorter than me but bulkier—one of those ex-athlete types whose prime was a decade ago but whose ego hasn’t moved on.
There’s a shine on his forehead and a buzzed cut that makes his ears stick out.
His sleeves are rolled up over badly inked forearms, and I clock the cheap watch, the fake confidence, the eyes that dart between mine and Lila’s like he still thinks he has some claim.
“Back off,” he snaps, voice louder now, hoping someone’s going to step in and de-escalate. “This is between me and her.”
I don’t step back. I let the silence stretch instead, let the weight of my stillness make the message clear.
Lila is behind me now, and she hasn’t said a word. I can feel the way she’s braced, ready to pull me away or shut this down, but I’m not looking at her yet. All of me is focused on the man in front of me—the one who thought he could touch her without consequence.
I lower my voice. “Touch her again, and you’ll lose the hand.”
He barks a laugh. “Big talk. Who the fuck even are you?”
Every part of me stills. “You’re better off not finding out.”
His eyes narrow. “Back off,” he snaps. “This is between me and her.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not.”
He sneers. “What, you her boyfriend?”
I glance at Lila. She looks shaken, angry, and caught between wanting me here and wanting this to disappear. I make the decision for both of us.
“I’m the person telling you to leave,” I say. “Right now.”
He laughs once and manages to sound just like a wet crow. “You don’t get to—”
He lunges and I sidestep, plant a hand on his shoulder, and shove him back into the counter hard enough to rattle the condiment rack. Someone shouts. Someone else swears. The owner yells about calling the cops.
Lila grabs my arm. “Ethan, stop.”
I stop. Immediately.
That’s the part that surprises her.
I step back, hands up, eyes never leaving the guy as he straightens and thinks better of trying again. He points at me, then at her.
“This isn’t over,” he says to her, voice low.
I step between them without touching him. “It is.”
He hesitates, reads the room, and backs toward the door, muttering. When he’s gone, the noise rushes back in all at once.
Lila turns on me. “What are you doing?”
“Protecting you,” I say.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Her jaw tightens. “You followed me.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not okay.”
She’s right, and the fact doesn’t feel good in my mouth. “I wanted to talk. You left.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to track me down and start a scene.”
I lower my voice. “He grabbed you.”
“He knows where I work,” she says. “He’s been bothering me. I was handling it.”
“He doesn’t get to put his hands on you.”
Her breath shakes. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
The owner clears his throat and points at the door. “Take it outside.”
We do.
On the sidewalk, the city presses in again, loud and indifferent. Lila rubs her wrist like it aches, and I hate that I didn’t get here sooner and hate that I came at all.
“Who was he?” I ask.
She hesitates. “An old friend. Or someone who thinks he is.”
“That didn’t look friendly.”
“It wasn’t,” she says, then lifts her chin. “And I didn’t need you to rescue me.”
“I know,” I say. “But I’m not sorry.”
She studies my face, searching for something, and I don’t know whether she finds it. Her phone buzzes. She checks it and stiffens again.
“I need to go,” she says.
“Lila—”
“Not now.”
She steps back, creating space with her body before I can argue, and the distance hits harder than the shove did inside. She turns and walks away without looking back, disappearing into the crowd like she’s practiced at it.
I stand there longer than necessary, hands curled at my sides, pulse still loud, and I understand something new and deeply inconvenient.
Whatever’s chasing her didn’t start with me. And whatever it is, it isn’t done yet.