Chapter Twenty-Five
Termination Clause
Emmie
I know something’s wrong the second he walks through the door.
Crew has tells. Most people wouldn’t notice them—he’s already so controlled, so practiced at keeping his face blank.
But I’ve spent almost two months learning him, cataloging every micro-expression, every shift in posture.
I know what he looks like when he’s annoyed (jaw tight, eyes slightly narrowed), when he’s amused (the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth), and when he’s overwhelmed (hands flexing, gaze going distant).
Right now, he looks like a man walking to his own execution.
“Hey.” I set down my laptop—I’ve been working on the book all day, words flowing easier than they have in months. “How was work?”
“Fine.”
He doesn’t move from the entryway. Doesn’t take off his jacket. Doesn’t come over to steal a bite of whatever I’m snacking on, the way he’s started doing lately.
“Crew?”
“We need to talk.”
Four words. Four words that have never, in the history of human communication, preceded anything good.
“Okay.” I close my laptop slowly. “What’s going on?”
He still won’t look at me. He’s staring at a spot somewhere over my left shoulder, his posture rigid, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“The transfer,” he says. “It’s off the table. Someone else took the Anchorage position.”
“That’s—” I break into a smile. “Crew, that’s great! That’s what you wanted, right? You get to stay. We should celebrate. I can make—”
“Emmie.”
The way he says my name stops me cold.
“The arrangement,” he continues, and his voice sounds wrong. Flat. Rehearsed. “It was only supposed to last until the transfer situation was resolved. That was the deal.”
The smile dies on my face.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the situation is resolved.” He finally meets my eyes, and there’s nothing there. No warmth, no softness, none of the vulnerability I’ve seen glimpses of over the past few weeks. Just… nothing. “Which means our arrangement has reached its natural conclusion.”
Natural conclusion?
The words echo in my head, hollow and clinical.
“So, what?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “We’re just… done? Back to being regular roommates?”
“Yes.”
One word. Like it’s simple. Like we can just rewind the past few weeks and pretend none of it happened.
“The girlfriend clause is fulfilled,” he continues, and his voice sounds wrong. Flat. Rehearsed. “We can go back to the original terms of the lease. Section 2, Paragraph—”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharp, jagged. “Don’t quote the contract at me right now, Crew.”
He flinches. Good.
“I thought—” I stand up, needing to move, needing to not be sitting down for this. “I thought we were building something. These past few weeks, the dinners, the conversations, last night—”
“Last night was a mistake.”
A mistake.
Him falling asleep on the couch with me. Him letting me hold him after his nightmare. Him telling me things he’s never told anyone.
His voice is steady. Too steady. Like he’s reciting lines he memorized on the drive home. “This was always supposed to be temporary. We both knew that going in.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I see it—the crack in the armor, the war happening behind his eyes. Part of him wants to take it all back, pull me into his arms, tell me he’s sorry.
But then the walls slam back up.
“Emmie—”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand, stepping back. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. This was a business arrangement, and now the business is concluded. Thank you for your professionalism, Agent Jensen.”
He flinches again at the formality. Good. I hope it stings.
I walk past him toward my bedroom, and he doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t say any of the things I desperately want him to say.
I close the door behind me and stand there in the darkness, waiting for the tears to come.
They don’t. Not yet.
I just feel hollow. Scraped out from the inside, like someone took a melon baller to my chest and left nothing but empty space.
On the other side of the door, I hear Crew’s footsteps. The sound of his bedroom door closing. The apartment settling into silence.
I slide down the wall and sit on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, staring at nothing.
I thought we were building something.
I thought he was starting to feel it too—the way we fit together, the way the apartment felt like home when we were both in it, the way he looked at me sometimes like I was something precious.
But I was just a clause in a contract. A means to an end.
And now the end is here.
Murphy scratches at my door, meowing plaintively. I let him in, and he climbs into my lap immediately, pressing his furry head against my chin.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper.
He purrs.
And finally, the tears come.