Chapter Twenty-Four
Lydia
I didn’t remember walking back to my apartment.
I remembered the kiss.
Every second of it.
The heat. The way his hands found my hips like they’d always belonged there. The rough, possessive sound he made in the back of his throat when I pulled him closer. The way time seemed to short-circuit, folding in on itself until it was just us—bar, walls, gravity be damned.
But everything after?
A blur.
Now I was pacing my tiny, overheated apartment, my pulse thudding like it was trying to punch its way out of my chest. I’d barely shut the door behind me before the floodgates opened. The thoughts, the doubts, the memories of his mouth on mine, and the way he said he wasn’t sorry.
I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes.
God.
What the hell had I done?
What had we done?
There’d been a moment, right before I walked out the bar door, where I could still feel his breath on my neck. My lips were swollen, my spine still tingling from the way he’d pulled me into him, and some traitorous part of me wanted to turn around and do it all over again.
But now?
Now all I could feel was everything I didn’t say.
Everything he hadn’t said.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, trying not to notice that I could still taste him. That my heart was still rioting in my chest like it hadn’t gotten the memo that this wasn’t supposed to happen.
I had rules.
Boundaries.
Plans.
And absolutely none of them included kissing the grumpiest man in Reckless River before 9 a.m.
“You’re an idiot,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair.
This wasn’t just messy.
It was dangerously close to emotional quicksand. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about what Riley told me. About Lucy. About his dad. About the kind of loss that steals your breath and rearranges your bones to a constant ache.
And he hadn’t said a word about it.
Not even a hint.
Which… okay. It wasn’t like I expected him to pour his soul out in the middle of a barstool makeout session. But still.
He kissed me like I was oxygen.
Like I could bring him back to life.
And I let him.
I wanted to.
But now I couldn’t shake the guilt curling in my stomach like smoke.
Because he didn’t know I knew .
I had the inside story. The chapter he hadn’t given me permission to read.
And the longer I sat here, the worse it felt.
He thought I was walking in blind, just another outsider meddling with his sacred space. But I knew what he was guarding. I knew what those bricks were made of.
And I still let myself want him.
I curled my fingers into the blanket beside me.
It wasn’t just the kiss.
It was him .
The way he looked at me when I challenged him. The way his voice dropped when he said tempting. The way he came alive when we were toe-to-toe, fire against fire, no holding back.
Every part of him—gruff, guarded, wrecked—was stitched together with the kind of scars I recognized.
Not because I saw them.
But because I felt them.
I knew what it meant to lose something that grounded you. To wake up every morning wondering how to keep going when the person you needed most was just… gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Mom would’ve told me to be careful.
Not with him. With myself.
Because once I let someone in, really in, I didn’t know how to back out again. I didn’t love halfway. I didn’t forget easily. And if I let Callum Benedict into that part of me that was still stitched together with grief, grit, and hope?
He could ruin me.
He could also be the only person who understood the language of loss the way I did.
Which might’ve been worse.
Because it meant I couldn’t hate him.
Even when I wanted to.
Even when he pushed and snapped and tried to scare me off with those stormy eyes and that fortress of a personality.
Even now, when I knew more about him than I was supposed to.
I stood, restless again, crossing the small space of my apartment. The late morning sun had slanted across the hardwood floor, dust motes dancing through the air like tiny sparks.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror.
Hair messy.
Lips still a little red.
Eyes… different.
Softer. Wounded. Like I’d glimpsed something I hadn’t meant to.
“Get it together,” I whispered.
But the words held no weight.
Because if I was being honest, truly, brutally honest, I didn’t want to undo what happened in the bar.
I didn’t want to forget how it felt to be kissed like I mattered. Like he couldn’t stop himself. Like everything else…his walls, his grief, the town’s judgment…melted in the heat between us.
But I couldn’t pretend it was simple.
Not when I knew what losing someone like Lucy could do to a man.
Not when I could see the cracks in him that hadn’t fully healed.
And not when I hadn’t told him the truth.
That I knew .
That I’d been carrying his ghosts without asking for permission.
I dropped back onto the bed, chest tight.
This wasn’t just about a kiss.
This was about trust.
And if I wanted him to give it, I’d have to do the same.
Eventually.
But not today.
Today I’d give us both a minute to breathe.
Even if every part of me was already aching to walk back through that bar door and do it all again.
There’s something borderline tragic about tidying your apartment after kissing someone who makes your bones melt.
I’d picked up the same throw pillow three times. Re-fluffed it. Moved it to the opposite end of the loveseat. Finally threw it on the floor.
No amount of fluffing could fix the way my chest twisted every time I thought about his mouth on mine. Or the fact that I’d wanted more. Still wanted more. Or that the guilt and the knowledge that I knew things he hadn’t told me were growing roots inside my gut.
I was two seconds from diving headfirst into a pint of melting mint chip when someone knocked.
Not a gentle tap.
A sharp, quick knock that had me straightening up with a jolt.
I peeked through the peephole. Drew.
Not who I expected, especially not at… I glanced at the microwave clock. 12:42.
Lunch rush.
I opened the door, brows drawn. “Drew?”
He looked… tense, not like his usual easygoing self. Something was just off about how he held himself—too rigid, jaw tight.
“Hey,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Is Callum here?”
I blinked. “What? No.”
His eyes darted over my shoulder like he half expected Callum to be standing in my kitchen eating my granola bars.
“I haven’t seen him since this morning,” I added, stepping aside so he could come in. “Why?”
“He’s not answering his phone.”
My heart dropped. “Okay… but that’s not weird, right? Isn’t he usually kind of…”
“Yeah, he’s a grump,” Drew cut in, letting the door close behind him. “But he’s not unreliable. That’s the thing. If he’s gonna duck out for a while, he tells me. Leaves a note. Texts. Something.”
That buzz of anxiety started crawling up my spine.
“Have you checked the bar?”
“Locked up. His truck’s not parked behind it, but I figured maybe he walked over here after…” He broke off, hesitating.
After what , Drew?
After I kissed your brother like I wanted to climb him like a tree ?
I cleared my throat. “He’s definitely not here.”
Drew let out a slow breath and rubbed his face. “It’s probably nothing. But it’s not like him to go radio silent and not open the bar.”
That was what made my stomach twist.
Because Callum might’ve been all sharp edges and snapped words, but he was reliable to a fault. Predictable, even in his unpredictability. A guy who fixed his leaky pipes, replaced broken lightbulbs before anyone asked, and opened the bar five minutes early to ensure the coffee was hot.
“Did he mention anything weird this morning?” Drew asked.
“No,” I said, the memory rushing back faster than I could block it. “He was… himself.”
Complicated. Heated. Too close and too much.
“But not off,” I added quickly. “Nothing that made me think he was about to vanish.”
Drew sat down on my armchair like his knees suddenly didn’t want to hold him up. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got a bad feeling. He’s been quieter than usual lately, and I just assumed it was… everything going on.”
Me , he meant.
The bar. The building. The kissing.
I nodded slowly, trying to ignore the guilt flooding my chest. “Did you check the trail behind the bar?”
“Yeah. Nothing.”
“What about the garden?”
“Not a sign.”
I paced to the window, chewing my thumbnail.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “He wouldn’t just leave.”
“Nope.”
Drew’s voice was sharper now. Final.
That’s what made it real.
That was the moment my skin prickled.
Because this wasn’t just strange.
It was wrong.
“He’s not just dependable,” Drew said, reading my expression. “He’s obsessive. Routine-oriented. Hates leaving loose ends.”
I turned from the window. “Then something’s off.”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “Exactly.”
I sat down slowly, knees hitting the edge of the coffee table.
We didn’t speak for a second.
The silence grew heavier than it should have.
“What if—” I started.
But I didn’t finish.
Because the last thing I wanted to do was speak something into existence.
What if something happened?
What if he got hurt?
What if I kissed him and he freaked out and took off?
Drew leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “He’s not the guy who ghosts. He’s the guy who shows up when nobody else will.”
I knew that.
I’d felt it the first time he stood next to me in the garden, pretending like he didn’t care, but still noticing when I missed a step, dropped something, or pushed too hard.
He noticed everything.
Which was why his not being here felt like the bottom dropping out.
“I’ll check the bar again,” Drew said, standing abruptly. “Maybe he left a note I missed. You okay?”
The question caught me off guard.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
But I wasn’t.
Because under the confusion, worry, and guilt was a flicker of something I wasn’t ready to name.
Fear.
Not just that he was gone, but that I’d pushed him without knowing the full story. That maybe I’d said or done something that made it harder for him to stay.
“I’ll call you if I hear anything,” I said, walking Drew to the door.
He nodded, and for a second, he hesitated.
Then he looked at me and said, “He’s not as put-together as he pretends to be. But he’s solid. If he’s not where he’s supposed to be, there’s a reason.”
I closed the door slowly after he left and leaned against it, arms crossed over my chest.
Because he was right.
Callum Benedict didn’t disappear.
And the fact that he had?
That was enough to set my entire world off balance.