Chapter 58
fifty-eight
. . .
CONNOR
She said go, but I didn’t make it that far.
Only to the wall across from her room. Now I’m propped there with one shoulder against it, like it somehow counts as leaving.
It doesn’t, obviously, but it’s the best I’ve got.
The elevator dings at the far end of the hall.
A housekeeping cart rattles somewhere around the corner.
Voices drift from two doors down, then fade.
The whole hotel keeps moving like nothing’s happened, while my whole body still feels wired wrong.
Too much adrenaline. Too much shame. Too much of her face when I said I love you and she looked at me like the words filled her with joy and pain at the same time.
The door to her room opens, and Whitney steps into the hall.
I push off the wall automatically, every part of me going toward her on instinct, but when our eyes connect, the look there stops me.
It’s not exactly anger. But it’s a warning that she’s still holding more than she can bear—the hurt, the noise, all the ways I’ve made this harder for her.
So, I stay where I am.
The elevator dings again behind us. Someone laughs farther down the hall. A door opens and shuts. None of it feels real.
Whitney’s fingers tighten around her phone. Her mouth parts like she might say something, then doesn’t. We just look at each other for one second that stretches longer than it should, and I understand enough.
She needs air. Space. Something that isn’t me right on top of her.
So, I watch her walk past me and toward the elevators.
Every part of me wants to follow, but I stay put because tonight is not about what I want.
I watch her move down the hallway until she disappears around the corner, then I stare at the pattern on the carpet like it might explain how the hell I got from finding her after the relay and touching the sailboat tattoo on my ribs like some private signal to this.
The door opens again and Rory steps into the hall.
His eyes go first to the corner Whitney just disappeared around, then back to me.
“You didn’t leave.”
It’s not quite a question.
“No.”
The hallway hums around us—the low churn of the ice machine, the distant roll of suitcase wheels, another elevator dinging—but right here it feels dead still.
Rory studies me for a second. “Why not?”
Because she’s hurting and leaving her felt impossible. Because I don’t know if she wants me gone for the night or for a few hours.
“She needed space. Not me disappearing.”
Rory folds his arms. “If she needs more than space? If she wants you nowhere near her?”
My jaw tightens. “Then I stay away.”
He watches me for another beat. “Even if that’s not what you want.”
A humorless laugh tries to escape. “Tonight’s not about what I want.”
That gets his attention in a way the rest of this conversation hasn’t yet. I can see it in the way he looks at me—like he was expecting me to argue, or push, or make a case for why I deserve more access to her than she’s ready to give, but I don’t have it in me.
Rory’s voice drops a little. “So what, you just wait out here looking miserable until she changes her mind?”
“If that’s what she needs, yeah.”
He blinks once, like that answer caught him off guard.
The elevator opens down the hall. Two swimmers from another team step out talking too loud, clock us for a moment, but keep moving. Rory waits until they pass.
“You hurt her.”
There’s nothing to do with that except take it.
“Yeah.”
“And if you try to bulldoze your way back in because you’re scared you screwed this up, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Normally, that would do something to me. Set me off. Make me want to push back just because I hate being talked to like a problem that needs managing.
But tonight, I just nod. “That’s fair.”
My response seems to throw him more than if I’d snapped.
Good.
Because I’m too tired and too sick over what this did to Whitney to fight with him for the sake of hearing my own voice.
For a second, the hallway goes quiet again.
Then Rory says, “This isn’t some game to you.”
It’s not a question but more him trying to analyze my intentions. How out of all the people in the world, Whitney and I found each other.
“No.”
I struggle with the rest, so he waits.
The words are already there. I can feel them pushing forward before I’ve fully decided to say them.
“No,” I say again, rougher now. “It’s Whitney. She’s not part of some game, and she’s not me trying to get under your skin. She’s not any of that. She’s—”
I stop, but I’m too late. Rory’s whole expression changes.
“She’s what?” he asks.
I drag a hand over the back of my neck and laugh once, short and self-deprecating.
There’s no point trying to hide anything, so I look at him and tell the truth.
“She’s the most important thing in my life now.”
Rory stares at me like he’s processing that.
I keep going because what’s the point of stopping now?
“I want things to be good with you again,” I say. “I mean that. But not if it comes at her expense.”
That shifts something in his face. Like maybe for the first time, he believes this isn’t casual, isn’t convenient, isn’t me chasing something reckless and calling it serious after the fact.
“She’s my sister,” he says. “And you already hurt her.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
He holds my gaze for one more second, jaw tight, then says, “Then respect whatever she decides to do next.”
I don’t look away.
“Understood.”
The elevator dings again. A door opens somewhere behind us, then shuts.
He holds my gaze for one more second, then disappears down the hallway.
I stay where I am, watching him go, all the fight gone out of me.
Because while wanting things right with Rory still matters, it doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as her.