Chapter 7
LAINE
Iroll up my Yoga mat, letting the chatter in the room brush past me. Forty-five minutes of sun salutations and warrior poses, and I still can't shake the restless feeling that's been following me around for weeks.
Since I talked to Reid.
Jamila gives me a hug, and for a second, I rest my head on her shoulder. Thank God for her.
"Same time Thursday?" she asks, leaning back to study me. She does that a lot lately, that deep little furrow between her brows.
"Wouldn't miss it."
I grab my bag and push through the door into the afternoon sun.
The February air has that crisp edge to it now, the kind that makes me want to curl up with a book and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Which is exactly what I've been doing, and I'm mad about it.
Five weeks of dwelling on that conversation with Reid, wondering if I did the right thing reaching out to Blake a month ago, wondering if he even got my text before he deployed or if it just sat there in some server somewhere waiting for him to land back in the States.
He's not my responsibility anymore. Neither of them are.
I'm dwelling. I hate dwelling. Dwelling is for people who don't know how to move forward, and I've spent my entire life moving forward—it's the one thing I've always been good at.
No more, Laine. That's enough.
I scan the street and lock on to the hardware store.
Bookshelves. I can finally get the anchors for those shelves that have been leaning against my bedroom wall for two months now because the mounting hardware that came in the box was garbage, cheap plastic anchors that would rip out of the drywall the second I put a hardback on them.
I'm all about the nesting lately, making my place feel more and more like mine, and even if everything else in my life feels upside down, my apartment is starting to feel like a little sanctuary.
Henderson's smells like sawdust and metal and that specific sharp tang of cut lumber that instantly transports me back to being twelve years old, sweeping up construction sites in the Philippines while my dad framed a new roof. It's a comforting smell. A smell that makes sense.
I bypass the front displays and head straight for aisle seven because I don't need help, I know exactly what I'm looking for. The fasteners aisle is a mess—bins mixed up, sizes mislabeled—and I dig through one marked "Heavy Duty," tossing aside plastic plugs until I find the toggle bolts.
"Quarter-inch," I mutter, checking the thread count. "Come on, where are the three-sixteenths?"
I spot a box on the top shelf, just out of reach, and I'm stepping onto the bottom rail of the shelving unit to grab it when a body crowds my peripheral vision, all heat and the sharp scent of sawdust and something darker like ozone, and a massive arm reaches right over my shoulder, effortless, and a voice I know drops straight into my chest.
"You don't want those."
My sneaker slips off the rail and I'm stumbling back and my hands are shaking, the plastic package of bolts I'm holding rattling because I know that voice.
I know the weight of that presence behind me, the way he takes up space, the way the air changes, and I don't turn around because if I don't turn around it's not real.
If I don't turn around, I can keep my heart inside my chest where it belongs instead of letting it climb up my throat and strangle me.
"The spring mechanism on that brand jams half the time." His voice is closer now, rough and careful at the same time. "You want the Toggler snaps. Bottom shelf, blue box."
I turn around.
Blake.
My purse hits the floor—I didn't drop it, my hand just stopped working—and he's here, alive, solid, massive in a way I don't remember, his shoulders stretching the seams of his flannel shirt like he's wider now, harder, like he spent the last four months doing nothing but lifting heavy things and surviving.
Which he did.
The bruises from that night are gone, the hollow haunted look is gone, and he's just—he looks—
Run.
The thought fires through my nervous system like a starter pistol and I'm moving, not a decision, just my body taking over, pivoting toward the end of the aisle, my feet already carrying me past him, past the shelving unit, and my shoulder clips the corner display of paint samples and they scatter across the floor in a cascade of color chips but I don't stop, the exit is right there, glass doors and sunlight and open air—
I hit the sidewalk and my lungs remember how to work.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I reach for the strap of my—my purse is on the floor in aisle seven. My phone, my keys, my wallet, everything is in that bag and I just ran like a startled animal.
Oh geez. Why did I do that. It wasn't a conscious decision, but now I get to turn around and walk back in there like a normal person and find my purse.
Why can't I just be normal?
I press my palm to my forehead and groan, and a woman walking past with a toddler gives me a concerned look.
I smile at her and it feels manic.
The door opens behind me.
"Laine."
Blake's voice, closer now but not crowding, and when I glance back he's standing a careful three feet away with my purse in his hand.
Of course, he brought it out to me, of course he did, because I'm handling this so well, so calm and collected.
"You forgot this."
I take the bag and make sure our fingers don't touch. "Thanks."
He's studying me, those dark eyes taking in my face and my white-knuckled grip on the purse strap and the way I'm still half-turned toward escape, and I can see him calculating something, weighing what to say.
I mean, what is there to say? 'Sorry I blew up your life. Love what you've done with your hair.'
"I didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't." The lie is automatic and even I can hear how unconvincing it is. His mouth tightens in something that's not quite a smile, not quite anything.
We stand there with three feet of February sidewalk between us and people navigating around us—a couple with coffees, a man with a dog, regular Saturday afternoon life happening. Meanwhile I'm trying to pretend my heart isn't trying to pound out of my ribcage.
"You look good," he says finally, and the words are so simple, so normal, they hit me sideways.
"You look alive," I blurt out, and then immediately wish I could take it back. "I mean—I didn't know if you'd made it home, if you were—Reid's truck was at the station sometimes so I knew he was okay but you were—"
Stop talking, Laine.
"I got back about a month ago.".
"Did you—" I start, then stop, because maybe I don't want to know.
"Yeah." His voice is quiet. "I got your text."
My stomach twists and I don't know if it's relief or hurt or some terrible combination of both. "You didn't respond."
"I didn't know what to say." He shifts his weight and the flannel pulls tight across his shoulders.
"Didn't know if you wanted me to. But thank you.
Thank you for looking out for him. I thought—" he breaks off, rubbing his hands along his stubbled cheeks.
"Fuck. I thought if I stayed away, shit would get better. "
It didn't. Not for anyone. Especially not for Reid. And it's not like Blake was out there sunning himself by a pool.
"How was—" I stop because how do you ask someone how their deployment was, how do you ask about surviving a war zone? "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." He shifts his weight. "Better than I was."
I believe him because he looks solid, present, like he's actually inhabiting his body instead of just dragging it around, and something in my stomach unclenches just a little.
"Good," I say, and my throat is tight. "That's—I'm glad."
A beat of silence and a man squeezes past us with a cart full of lumber, muttering an apology, and Blake glances toward the corner of the building.
"There's a bench," he says. "Away from the door traffic. If you want."
I should say no. I should take my purse and go home and let this encounter end before it gets complicated, before I start feeling things I don't want to feel. But I've been wondering for four months if he was dead or alive, if he made it home. "Okay."
The bench is weathered wood and peeling green paint, tucked against the side of the building. Blake sits on one end and I sit on the other with my purse clutched in my lap like a shield, and for a long moment neither of us speaks.
"I owe you an apology," Blake says finally. "A real one. Not the half-assed version I gave you that night in the rain."
My fingers tighten on the purse strap. "Blake, you don't—" This wasn't in my plan for today. Yoga. Bookshelves. Takeout. Emotional devastation and painful conversations weren't on the list.
"Yeah, I do." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, looking at the sidewalk instead of at me. "I was cruel to you. Deliberately, repeatedly cruel. I made you feel unwelcome in a place that should have been your home."
The memories surface before I can stop them—months of walking on eggshells, monitoring my voice and my movements, the slow erosion of feeling like I belonged anywhere, the confusion of Blake's hot-and-cold behavior, moments of genuine connection followed by walls of ice.
"I told myself I was protecting Reid," Blake continues, and his voice is rough, unpolished, like he's dragging the words out. "But that's bullshit. I was protecting myself. And I took it out on you."
I don't know what to say because my throat feels too tight for words and I'm staring at my hands, at the way my knuckles have gone white around the purse strap. Him acknowledging it doesn't really make anything better. The damage is done.
And I don't know if those wounds will ever close.
"You didn't deserve any of it," he says, and when I finally look at him his jaw is working. "Not one moment. You were good, Laine. You were kind. And I couldn't handle it."