Chapter 21
AFTERSHOCK (LEO)
The rope slaps the floor in a steady rhythm, leather whispering against wood. My shoulders burn. My calves are tense. Sweat runs down my spine and disappears into the waistband of my shorts.
I keep going. Jump. Land. Reset.
I don’t count. Counting turns it into a negotiation, and I’m not negotiating this morning.
The house is silent beyond the gym walls. Just the fan overhead and the rope cutting the air.
She didn’t come back.
The thought lands flat.
She slept somewhere else.
My grip tightens. The rope snaps harder against the floor before I force it loose again.
Her weight on top of me. Her mouth. The way she said it like she was offering mercy instead of distance. Like halfway was supposed to be enough.
Last night still hasn’t let go of me.
Wanting her.
Stopping.
That part was harder than anything I’ve done in a ring.
I’d do it again.
So I keep the rope moving and let the burn climb until discipline is the only thing left in the room.
The gym door opens behind me.
I don’t stop.
Adam steps in first, hoodie on, hair damp, still half asleep. He takes one look at me and slows.
“You’re early,” he says.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
That’s enough explanation.
He takes that and heads for the squat rack without pushing, but I can feel him clocking the fact that I’m going hard before sunrise for no obvious reason.
A minute later, the door opens again.
Matthias comes in, takes in me, the rope, the sweat darkening the mat, and leans against the wall. “Heard you downstairs. You’ve been at it awhile.”
The rope stutters. I correct.
“You’re muscling it.”
I loosen my grip. The rhythm smooths back out.
Matthias watches another turn of the rope in silence. Then, “You do this when your head gets loud?”
I don’t answer.
Because if I stop, I think. And if I think, I’m right back in that bed with her on top of me, my hands on her hips, one sentence turning the whole thing inside out.
He accepts that anyway. “Be careful. Routine helps until you start using it as punishment.”
Adam glances over at that.
I keep the rope moving.
Eventually I slow the rope, let it coast once around my wrists, then stop. The exertion is hammering through me.
Adam is into his third set of bench presses. Matthias is spotting him. I grab my towel and get out before my body decides to keep going just because it can.
The outdoor shower knocks the sweat off.
Nothing else.
Inside, the house is finding its shape—floorboards, a door, someone laughing down the hall. The kitchen is cool, bright, smelling of coffee.
I know before I taste it that it’s the wrong beans.
I pour a mug anyway.
It isn’t hers.
Nothing about this morning is.
Nate is at the counter, barefoot, hair a mess. “You sleep?”
“Some.”
He looks past me, up the hall, toward the stairs, searching for who didn’t walk in behind me. Eden comes in a second later, hoodie over sleep-soft hair, and does the same sweep in half the time.
Me.
Coffee.
No Liz.
She doesn’t say a word. That’s how I know she sees all of it.
I drink the brew anyway and let it burn going down.
Nate starts pulling out pans and a cutting board, moving with that calm, practiced competence of his. Eden leans against the counter with her mug and keeps not asking questions.
The house continues moving.
She’s somewhere in it. Awake, probably. Thinking. Pulling the walls back up.
I could go find her.
I don’t.
Eden takes a sip of coffee, watching Nate crack eggs one-handed into a bowl, then says, almost absentmindedly, “Nice of Liz to cover a shift on a holiday weekend.”
The mug suddenly feels too fragile in my hand.
I look over.
“Someone at the hospital called out sick, and she offered to come in.” Then her eyes find mine. “She’s taking the seven o’clock ferry.”
I check my watch.
Ten to seven.
I set the mug down and walk out the back without an explanation.
The dock is a five-minute walk. I make it in three.
The ferry is already at the slip, engine running, the last few passengers filing up the gangway. A deckhand is checking boarding passes. Someone loads a bike. The whole operation has the indifferent efficiency of something that runs on schedule whether you’re ready or not.
I stop at the edge of the dock.
She’s near the back of the line. Hair pulled up, bag over one shoulder, wearing something borrowed and oversized. She moves the way she always does–contained, deliberate, watching her exits.
She doesn’t see me.
I stay where I am.
I’m not here to stop her. I made that decision before I left the kitchen. She gets to go if she needs to. That’s not something I’ll take from her.
But I need to see it.
I need to stand here and watch it happen with my own eyes instead of hearing about it over coffee.
The line moves. She moves with it.
At the top of the gangway, she pauses. Her head lifts slightly, like she’s checking the horizon. Or like something pulled at her.
But she doesn’t turn around.
The gangway comes up. The mooring lines drop. The water opens between the hull and the dock in a slow, widening line.
I watch until the ferry clears the slip and finds its heading.
Then I turn around and walk back to the house.
I step back outside onto the porch.
The air is already warming. The light is brighter now. The ocean keeps going.
Same as always.
My fingers brush the roll of tape on the porch rail out of habit.
I stop.
That’s not what this is.
I flex my hands instead and let the tension bleed off without giving it somewhere to land.
That’s the part nobody sees.
Not the stopping.
The staying stopped.