Chapter 42
REID
The phone rings, cutting through the silence of the empty house.
I grab it off the coffee table, heart hammering. Laine.
"Hey, beautiful," I answer, forcing warmth into my voice, trying to sound like the guy who has it all together. "Everything okay?"
"Reid," she says. Her voice is tight. Strained. "We need to talk."
My stomach drops. Those four words. The universal signal for disaster.
"Okay," I say, sitting up straighter on the couch. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"
"Not over the phone," she says. "I'm... I'm coming over. I'm five minutes away."
"Okay. Yeah. Come over." The breath I didn't know I was holding punches out of me.
She's coming over. That's good. That's — you don't drive across town at ten o'clock at night to dump someone.
That's what phones are for. You show up to fix things.
To cry on someone's couch. To make up. "I'll put the kettle on. Drive safe."
"Okay," she whispers. And hangs up.
I stare at the phone. We need to talk.
But she's coming here. She's coming to me.
I launch off the couch. The living room is — oh, god.
Magazines fanned across the floor like I'm running a dentist's waiting room, empty pizza box sitting on the coffee table like a monument to my week.
I grab the box, stuff it into the recycling bin, kick the magazines into a pile, fluff the pillows — do I fluff pillows?
I'm fluffing pillows now. Cool. I need this place to look like a home. Like somewhere you'd want to stay.
I scrub a hand through my hair and catch my reflection in the hallway mirror.
I look like I've been awake since Tuesday.
The last week carved itself right into the skin under my eyes.
Doesn't matter. I can fix this. Whatever's wrong — whatever Blake said or didn't say, whatever's been chewing at her — I can fix it.
I pace the kitchen while the water boils. Five minutes away. She likes tea. I'll make her a cup, and we'll snuggle on the couch, and everything will be okay.
Maybe she just had a bad shift. Maybe she's overwhelmed. Maybe she just needs me to hold her. I can do that. I'm good at that.
Headlights sweep across the front window.
She's here.
I head for the front door and open it before she can knock, stepping out onto the porch. The night air is damp and cold, smelling of wet pine.
She's parking the car. But she doesn't cut the engine immediately. She sits there for a long moment, staring at the house.
Come on, Laine. Come inside.
Finally, the door opens. She steps out.
"Laine?" I call out, starting down the steps. "Hey. I made tea."
She doesn't move toward the stairs. She stays by her car, one hand on the door like she's ready to bolt. The porch light casts long, harsh shadows across her face. She looks pale. Drawn. And she's wearing jeans and a sweater, not pajamas. She wasn't sleeping.
"I can't come in, Reid," she says. Her voice is flat. No warmth.
I stop on the bottom step. The relief in my chest starts to curdle into something else. Something too fucking cold.
"What do you mean? Of course you can come in. It’s freezing out here."
"No," she says, shaking her head. "It's not my house. It never was."
"Laine, what is this? You said you were sleeping."
"I lied," she says. "I was at Murphy's."
Don't like that. At all. "Murphy's? Why?"
"Blake was there."
His name lands between us like a fucking rock.
Blake. Of course. He walked out of the workshop while I was in the shower. I knew he was gone—his truck wasn't in his spot—but I figured he was just driving around, cooling off. And what? She went to meet him? Why the fuck would she do that?
"Did he say something to you?" I step closer, my hands curling into fists at my sides. If he touched her... if he insulted her again... "Laine, if he started shit with you, I swear to God—"
"He told me the truth, Reid."
I freeze. "What truth?"
"He told me about the contract."
The world stops. The sound of the wind in the trees, the hum of the porch light, the blood rushing in my ears—it all just stops.
The contract. Afghanistan.
"He told me he tried to leave tonight," she says, her voice trembling now. "He told me he had a job lined up in Afghanistan. He was going to go. He was going to give us space. He was going to give us a chance."
I open my mouth, but what the fuck can I say. I feel like I’ve been caught red-handed standing over a body.
"And he told me you begged him to stay."
"I didn't beg," I croak. My voice sounds wrecked. "I just... I told him I needed him."
"You stopped him." She looks at me, and her eyes are swimming with tears. "He offered you an out. He offered you a solution to all of the fighting, all of the tension. He was willing to ship himself halfway across the world so that we could work. And you said no."
"I did it for him!" I step forward, reaching for her, but she takes a sharp step back. My hand drops to my side. "Laine, you don't understand. He’s not stable. Sending him back to a war zone right now? It would be a death sentence. I was protecting him."
"You chose him."
"I didn't choose him over you! That’s not what this is!" Why can't she understand that it wasn't a fucking choice? I can't risk him dying over there. He's not in a good headspace, and he hasn't been for a while.
"It is exactly what this is." A tear spills over, tracking down her cheek. "Jamila was right. I’m not dating a man. I’m dating a committee. And the chairman just vetoed my happiness."
"That's not fair," I plead. "I love you. I want you. Keeping Blake here doesn't change that. We can still be happy. We can still—"
"How?" she interrupts, her voice rising. "How can we be happy when I know that my boyfriend discusses all our private stuff with his roommate?"
"I was scared," I whisper. "I’m sorry. Laine, I swear to God, I’m sorry. I never thought he would say that shit to you."
"But he did. Because he knows everything. There is no 'us', Reid. There's only the three of us." She looks down at the ground, frowning. "It's like the two of you are on the same team, and I’m just the visitor."
"No." I shake my head violently. "No, that’s not true. You’re not a visitor. You’re my future. You’re everything."
"Then why is he still here?"
"Fuck! Because he’s my best friend! Because he saved my life! You can’t ask me to just throw him away!"
"I never asked you to throw him away," she says softly. "You had a chance to let him leave when he wanted to go. You had the chance to prioritize us for once. And you couldn't do it."
She reaches for the door handle of her car.
Panic explodes in my chest. A primal, terrifying need to stop her. If she gets in that car, it’s over. I know it. I can feel it in the air.
"Laine, wait. Please." I rush forward, grabbing her hand before she can open the door. Her skin is ice cold. "Don't do this. Don't leave like this. We can fix it. I’ll fix it."
"Reid, let go."
"I'll kick him out," I say, the words tumbling out of me in a desperate rush. "If that’s what you need, I’ll do it. I’ll tell him to go. Tonight. Right now. I’ll walk into that workshop and tell him to pack his shit."
She looks down at my hand gripping hers. She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't hold me back. Her hand is limp in mine.
"You shouldn't have to be forced," she says. "And the fact that you’re only offering now, because you’re afraid of losing me... it’s not enough."
"It has to be enough!" My voice cracks. I’m begging now. I don’t care. I’ll beg. I’ll crawl. "Laine, I love you. Doesn't that matter? Doesn't the last five months matter?"
"They matter so much," she whispers. "That’s why this hurts so bad. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Reid. You made me believe I could stay."
She pulls her hand gently from my grip.
"But I c—can't stay in a house where I’m tolerated. I can't stay with a man who needs his friend's permission to be happy."
"I don't need his permission!"
She locks eyes with me. And the certainty in them makes me freeze. "You needed him to stay more than you needed me to be safe."
The truth of it hits me like a fist to the gut. Safe. I didn't get it. He's not dangerous to her. Not physically anyway. How the fuck can I be this stupid? She told me she was hurting. But I didn't see it, not really.
I stand there, paralyzed, as she opens the car door. The interior light floods the driveway, illuminating the tears streaming down her face. She looks devastated. She looks beautiful.
She looks gone.
"Please," I whisper. One last time. "Please don't go."
She pauses, one foot in the car. She looks up at me, and her eyes are full of a terrible, final pity.
"He said everyone leaves," she says. "I didn't want him to be right. But I guess he is."
She slides into the seat. The door slams shut.
I stand in the driveway as the engine turns over. I stand there as she backs out. I stand there as the taillights shrink to red pinpricks and then blink out around the bend.
Gone.
The silence rushes back in. Louder than before. It screams.
Everyone leaves.
Blake said that to her. Looked the woman I love in the eye and told her she was temporary. Took the things I trusted him with and used them to cut her open.
And then he told her about the contract.
He told her I made him stay. Painted me as the desperate, clingy friend who couldn't function alone. Took the one thing I did out of love — trying to save his life — and turned it into the thing that killed this.
My knees give. I sit down hard on the bottom porch step. The damp cold seeps through my jeans. I can't feel it. I can't feel anything except the absence. This huge, hollowed-out nothing where she used to be.
She's gone.
Laine is gone. The laughter. The warmth. The future I was building. All of it.
Gone.
And it's his fault.
The thought lands like a match on gasoline.
It's his fault.
He couldn't just leave it alone. Couldn't just be happy for me. Had to pick at it. Had to undermine it. Had to make her feel small. Had to tell her things that were private.
And tonight? Tonight he went for the kill.
He told her I stopped him from leaving. He knew exactly what that would do. Knew it would prove to her that she came second.
He did this on purpose.
He wanted her gone. He's been trying to get rid of her since day one, and tonight he finally succeeded. Sacrificed my happiness to keep things the way they are. Just me and him. Just the two of us in this big, empty house, miserable together.
A sound cuts through the night.
Tires on gravel.
I look up. Twin beams of light sweep across the trees. A truck engine rumbles, low and familiar.
Blake.
He’s back.
He's coming home. Probably thinks he's safe. Probably thinks he got away with it. Probably thinks I'm asleep and tomorrow he can just wake up and act like nothing happened. Like he didn't just take a wrecking ball to my entire life.
I don't move. Not yet.
I sit on the damp steps. The cold seeps through my jeans, and I stare at the yellow light that flicks on in the workshop window. Wind picks up, rattles the pine branches. I barely feel it.
I watch the truck pull around the side of the house toward the workshop. Watch the headlights cut out. Hear the heavy thud of the door closing. His workshop. His sanctuary.
Minutes pass.
He's in there. Taking off his jacket. Setting up his tools. Safe in his little fortress of solitude while I'm sitting out here in the wreckage he made. He's just going to go back to work. Like nothing changed.
I stand up.
The grief in my chest hardens. It crystallizes into something sharp and deadly.
I’m not sad anymore. I’m not desperate.
I’m fucking livid.
I walk down the driveway. My hands are fists. My breath is coming in short, sharp bursts.
He thinks he’s my brother? He thinks he’s protecting me?
Brothers don’t do this. Brothers don’t destroy each other.
I reach the workshop door. I don't hesitate. I don't knock.
I slam it open.
And I step inside to burn it all down.