CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
TRISTAN
I was insane for being here. In front of her house again. And I’d be lying if I said it was the first time, or that it didn’t hollow me out to imagine her choosing him over me, letting him touch what I ached for.
Was she fucking him while I sat miserably, thinking about her? Was I just another bad habit she slipped into before going home?
Fuck.
Yes, I was insane.
I could keep telling myself I was just passing through the neighborhood, but that was a lie too.
I came to see the house—that towering, immaculate monument to everything he had and everything I didn’t.
My land back home used to feel like something worth being proud of, but next to this place, it felt like an inadequate dump.
I’d sworn off technology, but I didn’t need it to know how far his influence stretched.
I’d recently walked the university halls, skimmed pamphlets, seen his name stamped across shelves like he owned the fucking air.
The celebrated professor whose books promised that anyone could be remade into their most perfected self.
Oliver Black. Even saying his name felt like I’d swallowed something bitter. One meeting with him was enough to feel the weight of his fucking ego, yet everyone else treated him like he was untouchable. My fingers twitched with the urge to look him up, to see his face beside hers—
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Instead, I ended up back in my van. Back in that cold hotel room. Back to drinking myself numb while waiting for her to knock on my door and kiss me like I was the only thing she wanted. The waiting was its own kind of torture.
So I came back here. To his house. At odd hours. Sometimes more than once a day. I’d park behind the same white sedan and watch the still windows, feeling my skin prickle, feeling something cold crawl up my spine. I told myself I didn’t know why.
But maybe I did.
And that was when her voice—the reader from my childhood—slipped back into my mind. The way her expression had changed, how she’d stared at the symbols like they were a warning written just for me.
You’ve done this before. Not the fucking tea. The journey.
Back then, I didn’t understand it. I thought she was being dramatic, mystical for the sake of it. Just utter bullshit because if she was onto something, why hadn’t she warned me my father would drown in his lungs while I sat helpless at his side?
But standing here now, staring at Daisy’s house, I felt it in my bones—that unsettling truth that I was returning to something I’d never truly left.
The same kind of woman. The same kind of husband. The same pull I couldn’t fight. The same path I knew wasn’t good for me.
She told me the destination was never certain.
But God, looking at that house, at the life she lived behind those perfect walls, I could feel how close I was to repeating whatever version of myself had come across her before. Like I was already halfway through a story I’d been warned about, and Daisy was the part I was always meant to find.
Or lose.
I shouldn’t have been out here. I knew that.
It was barely six in the morning, the sky still marked with night, and I was following a man I had no business trailing.
But the second I saw Oliver Black step out of that perfect house with a bag slung over his shoulder, something in me snapped into motion.
He drove a pricey white car, the kind with a satin finish.
Lah-di-fucking-dah. I kept my distance, far enough that he wouldn’t notice, but close enough that I could track every turn he made.
My pulse was a steady, sick rhythm in my throat.
I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I just needed to know where he was going.
But the truth was simpler and uglier: I was impulsive and obsessive. I needed to know what he was up to. Needed to see behind the scenes of the handsome man she went home to.
The drive stretched on longer than I expected, with miles of empty road. Oliver didn’t speed, swerve, or look around. He just drove, never over the speed limit, never under.
Then he pulled into the parking lot of a roadside inn and pub—a brown-bricked building with a cheerful sign and a gravel lot that crunched under the tires. I eased in behind a row of cars, feeling unusually calm.
He didn’t get out.
He just sat there.
Minutes passed. Then more. Long enough that the sky began to lighten, a thin gray bleeding into the horizon. Oliver didn’t move. He didn’t touch his phone one last time like others did before they got out of their cars. He just stared straight ahead.
A chill crawled up my spine.
What the fuck is he doing?
I leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel, trying to read something—anything—in the rigid line of his shoulders. But he was unreadable. Empty. Like he’d shut himself off from the world.
Then, finally, he opened the door.
He stepped out, smoothed his shirt, and pulled out a paper bag. He walked toward the pub with the same confident stride he probably used in every room he owned.
Right before he entered the pub, he stopped at the rubbish bin and dropped the paper bag into it. I watched him disappear inside, my pulse spiking with something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I didn’t go in right away. I took my time, trying to talk myself out of doing something stupid like speaking to him. But I couldn’t help myself. Some wounded part of me wanted to understand the spell of him. If I could see what Daisy saw, maybe losing her to him would hurt less.
Go.
I didn’t linger or fight the simple voice in my head that urged me forward.
I opened the door and climbed out. My eyes trailed his car as I passed it, unable to stop myself from glancing inside to see if there might be something of hers.
The car appeared pristine and empty. Like it had fucking driven out of a dealership a minute ago.
I stepped inside with my guitar slung over my shoulder. I didn’t intend on playing, but it gave me a reason to be here if Oliver noticed me. A busker scoping out a new spot. Nothing more.
I spotted him immediately.
Oliver sat alone in a booth near the back. He wasn’t scrolling his phone. He wasn’t reading. He wasn’t even pretending to be occupied.
He was just… sitting, still as stone. Exactly like he had been when he was inside his car.
I took a seat at the bar, angled so I could watch him in the mirror behind the liquor bottles.
Minutes passed. Then more. The pub was quiet at this hour, just a few regulars murmuring over their food. Oliver didn’t move.
A server interrupted me, asking if I would like a drink. I declined, and off she went. I eagerly returned my attention to him and tensed when my eyes swung back to his table.
He was gone. Just like that. The booth was empty.
I scanned the room. Nothing. No movement. No white shirt. No sign he’d ever been there.
I turned back toward the bar, trying to piece together how he could’ve slipped past me in seconds. His voice suddenly came from behind me.
“We suffer more in imagination than reality.”
My spine straightened. I spun around.
Oliver stood there, hands in his pockets, expression mild. Like we were two acquaintances bumping into each other at a grocery store instead of two men who had no business being in the same place this early in the morning.
That blank face was gone. His eyes were lively, his smile brilliant as he looked me in the eye with so much focus.
“The good Samaritan,” he said, as if greeting an old friend. “Forgive me for forgetting your name.”
“I don’t mind Samaritan,” I said with ease.
Still smiling, he replied, “I do. What’s your name again?”
“Tristan.”
“Ah, Tristan.”
“And you’re—”
“Oliver.”
“Oliver.”
“That’s right.” His stare was intent. I couldn’t move as he watched me carefully, saying, “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
I shrugged casually. “Scoping out new places to play. Thought this place might be worth a try.”
His eyes flicked to the guitar case. “Ah. Of course.”
He didn’t sound convinced. He didn’t sound unconvinced either. He seemed… curious.
He stepped closer, and his gaze swept over me, judging me. It was the same way he’d looked at me outside the restaurant. Except now there was something sharper behind it.
“Did you follow me?” he asked lightly, like it was a joke.
I didn’t blink. “You think highly of yourself.”
He smiled at that. “Can’t be too sure these days. Have you seen the derelicts around? Sprouted up like weeds.” Before I could reply, he chuckled. “I’m not calling you a derelict. You didn’t pocket my money, and my wife praised your singing. Do you remember that?”
“I do.”
“Do you remember my wife?”
I didn’t answer right away. My mind was sluggish. He talked fast, and I felt like I was being dissected. One fuckup, and he’d know something was off.
“I remember her,” I finally said.
His smile broadened. “Of course you do. Who can forget my wife? She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
I didn’t reply. He didn’t wait for one.
“Did you order anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Have breakfast with me. I’ll get us a table.”
He flagged down a young server who was more than willing to help. A minute later, we were seated in a booth, and I didn’t know how the fuck I got here.
“Tell me about yourself,” Oliver said, his demeanor friendly and open. “I want to know about the life of a busker.”
“It’s not all that exciting.”
He grinned. “Bullshit. Every day is spontaneous, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“If you’re here, you’re traveling, so you’re not doing it in one place.”
“Yeah.”
I kept my answers light and vague, but he didn’t stop trying to drag more words out of me.
His eyes searched mine. “What’s not exciting about a busker who lives his life traveling and singing and possibly meeting some happy faces along the way?”
“When you put it like that, I guess it’s not bad. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you doing so far out of town?”
“I’m swinging by my cabin. Getting it ready for my wife.”