Chapter 16
CALVIN
If you want to see a grown man lose every ounce of swagger, watch Riot realize he’s lost the wedding ring.
Not just any ring.
The ring.
Maddie’s grandfather’s heirloom, worth more than Riot’s car. Maybe his actual life.
It starts with a clatter in the B&B hallway, Riot’s gym bag hitting the floor.
He rips it open and tears through it like it’s hiding the last donut on earth.
“No, no, no, no…” His voice rises with each word, socks and cufflinks and deodorant flying like confetti. “Where the hell is it?”
Cara materializes in seconds, clipboard in one hand, death glare in the other. She surveys the wreck instantly and cuts off Maddie with a breezy, “Mads, check the boutonnieres. Your mom was fussing with them, I swear she moved them.”
Riot is sweating now, rifling through his suit pockets like he’s on a TSA watchlist.
“Cara, please. If Maddie finds out, I’m sleeping in the car until Christmas. It was in the little green box. I tucked it in my gym bag so I wouldn’t forget.”
“Wait.” Cara’s eyes narrow. “The same gym bag you dragged to the field this morning?”
“I needed to think!” Riot hisses. “It’s my pre-game ritual, okay? I sat in the bleachers and ran through my vows. I was trying to psych myself up. I must’ve... shoot, what if I dropped it?”
“Tell me you didn’t just leave it in your car,” Cara snaps.
“I checked twice.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, then glances toward the stairs.
Jules is coming down, hair damp, expression steel. Tired but sharp.
“I need a secret weapon,” Cara mutters, scanning the room. “Actually, two.”
She corners us with her eyes, switching from wedding planner to covert ops in a blink.
“Jules. Calvin. Riot needs backup.”
Jules takes in the chaos, Riot sweating, Cara bristling, and exhales hard. “What’s new? First his jacket, now what?”
“Ring’s missing,” I say, voice flat.
Her eyes narrow, chest rising like a soldier given orders she can’t refuse. “Ok, where’s the last place it was seen?”
“He’s not sure. Said it was in his gym bag, which he took to the football field to focus or something like that. If it’s anywhere, it’s under the bleachers,” Cara says, already steering us toward the door. “If anyone can find it, it’s you two. Disaster’s your specialty.”
Riot stands off to the side, half-grateful and half-mortified.
He looks pale, like he’s just realized he might have proposed with an IOU.
“Please find it. You know where we sit, Cal. That’s the only place I went. If it’s there… drinks on me at The Rusty Tap for a year.”
Jules sighs, already moving.
I follow, heart pounding. Not just from the rush, but from the way Cara glanced at Jules, then at me. No words. Just that look.
Quiet, deliberate. Like: Go find that ring. And maybe each other.
We step out into a morning still shaking off its haze. The grass beneath our feet smells like rain and recall.
Jules leads. Doesn’t look back.
Cara watches from the porch, her face a blur of worry, hope, and that dangerous cocktail of matchmaking and chaos.
The ring’s just an excuse. What we’re really digging for… is everything we buried.
We don’t talk as we cross the field.
The air between us is thick. Not angry. Not cold. Just… weighted. Like we’re both carrying different versions of the same experience, too scared to compare them out loud.
Jules walks ahead, ponytail swaying with purpose, shoulders stiff like armor. She keeps her gaze locked forward, not once checking if I’m behind her.
She heads straight for the bleachers, the same place Riot always went to clear his head.
The same place we used to sneak off to when life got too loud.
She doesn’t wait for me to catch up, but she doesn’t leave me behind either.
We would sit there for hours. Sometimes talking. Sometimes just shoulder to shoulder, watching clouds stretch across the sky.
Back when silence meant comfort. Not this.
The old bleachers still hunch in the far corner of the field, crouched like they’re bracing for something. Paint chipped. Bolts rusted. Wind whistling through the cracks.
A place the world forgot.
She slows when we reach the edge of the track, sneakers crunching on worn gravel.
“This is where he said he sat?” she asks, scanning beneath the lowest bench.
“Yeah.” I step over a cracked plank. “Said he was rehearsing his vows. Must’ve had the bag next to him.”
Jules drops to a crouch, brushing her hand through the grass. Methodical. Almost clinical. I can’t tell if she’s looking for the ring or trying not to think about everything else we lost here.
I move toward the far end, ducking lower than I need to just to get a second away from her eyes.
It’s quiet. But not peaceful.
The years between us sit heavy in the air, waiting for one wrong word.
The grass is uneven, too long in some patches, chewed down to the roots in others. The field looks exactly like we left it.
But nothing else does.
“He rehearsed his vows here?” Jules asks softly. “That’s… kind of sweet.”
“Riot’s sweet side wins again. That the key to your heart too?”
Her eyes flick up instantly, sharp enough to warn me.
“It’s the gesture, Calvin. That’s all.”
Right.
I crouch, fingers brushing something shiny. It catches the light, flashes like it might matter.
But it’s just a soda tab. Useless. Forgotten.
I clutch it between my fingers, scanning nearby.
Jules stands, brushing off her knees like the grass knows too much.
“He said he tucked it in his gym bag?”
“Green box,” I say. “Probably slipped out when he reached for water.”
“Maybe he never took it out,” she says softly.
Then leans into the rusted railing, arms folded across her ribs like she’s holding herself together. Her gaze tracks the clouds, as if they might explain why we’re both still standing here.
Our eyes catch halfway. Like a brief collision.
Her jaw’s tight. Shoulders squared like she’s bracing for impact.
“You always had a lot of secrets,” she says quietly, still staring past me.
The words hit hard. Not cruel, just sudden.
“What secrets?”
She stiffens. Her hand freezes on the slat above her, knuckles pale.
“The gossip. The stuff people kept saying about you.” She finally looks at me. “The way everything always felt… half-hidden.”
The wind picks up. Neither of us moves.
“I wasn’t trying to hide,” I say finally. “I was teaching guys how to talk to girls and… honestly? Part of me liked what it turned into.”
I let out a rough breath.
“People listened to me. The guys looked at me like I had everything figured out.”
My jaw tightens.
“And somewhere in all of that, I stopped noticing how much it was actually hurting us.”
Jules stays quiet.
“I didn’t want you thinking I was using you,” I admit. “But I also didn’t want to lose what all of it was becoming.”
Her eyes flick away.
“Do you know what it felt like?” she asks quietly. “Hearing rumors from other people? That I was part of your schemes…”
A beat passes.
“You really thought I’d see the worst in you.” She crosses her arms looking past me.
My stomach twists hard.
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of. And it was my fault… I admit that.”
The soda tab bites into my palm. I keep turning it over anyway.
“Jules…” I meet her eyes. “There wasn’t some master plan. I just kept thinking I could manage everything.”
I shake my head once.
“I figured I could say the right thing and pull you back in. I felt untouchable.”
A hollow laugh slips out.
“But eventually helping everyone else got easier than dealing with what was happening right in front of me.”
I look down at the bent metal in my hand.
“I believed I could always talk my way back to you.”
I flick the tab into the dirt beside my boot.
“Until one day I couldn’t.”
A beat.
“I felt like I betrayed you.”
My throat tightens.
“And by the time I realized I had… everything was already wrecked.”
Her jaw tightens.
“Well… you did.”
She turns away, voice softening just enough to sting more.
“And when you buried your issues… you taught me to bury mine too.”
She doesn’t look at me.
“I thought time…” My breath comes out hollow. “I thought time would settle things.”
I shake my head.
“But the longer I stayed away… the harder it became to come back.”
Jules turns toward me, arms still folded. Something in her expression sharpens.
“You were supposed to talk to me, Calvin.”
Her eyes lock onto mine.
“You always had words for everyone else. So where did they go when it actually mattered with me?”
That one cuts clean through me.
“I thought you wanted space,” I admit quietly. “I thought maybe if I gave you that… I’d be protecting what we promised each other.”
She lets out a breath halfway between disbelief and heartbreak.
“Space? Ten years of silence? No calls? No showing up?” Her eyes flash. “That was your version of protecting what we promised each other? How’d that work out for you?”
I don’t answer.
Because hearing it out loud suddenly makes it sound just as broken as it always was.
“I didn’t need space, Calvin.” Her voice drops lower now, rough enough to scrape against my ribs. “I needed honesty.”
My gaze drops. The silence breathes between us. Then Jules takes a step closer, something unreadable flickering across her expression.
“I was in your room this morning, by the way,” she says, “looking for your… jacket.”
My eyes lift to hers instantly.
“I saw your… Strategy Lab.”
My stomach tightens.
“That old thing?” I manage.
“It was just there,” she says softly. “Stacked against the wall.”
That damn box.
The beginning of everything.
And somehow… the unraveling of us.
“I didn’t…” I start, but she lifts a hand, stopping me cold.
“I’m not mad,” she says quietly. “I just wish I’d known back then.”
Her eyes shine in the morning light, but she refuses to blink. Like holding herself together has become instinct.
“Last night,” she whispers. “I heard you say I was the only thing that ever made you feel real.”
I freeze. Nod once, slow.
“Then why did you leave me wondering if I mattered at all?”
My chest caves inward.
“I…” My thumb grazes the folded edges of the letter through my pocket, the same shape as regret.
She stays quiet. Just watching me. And somehow that makes it harder. My voice roughens.
“I told myself if I pulled you back in, I’d only hurt you again.” The truth hangs there between us. Bare and ugly. “So I stayed silent.”
I stare at the dirt near my boots. The bent tab. The stubborn grass.
“The longer it went on, the easier it became to convince myself you’d already moved on too.”
The words scrape out of me.
“So I did what I always do. I built things. A business. A reputation. A whole damn life.”
I shake my head slowly.
“None of it touched the part of me that lost you.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
The wind shifts softly through the bleachers, carrying the smell of cut grass and rain somewhere far off.
“You were always there,” I admit quietly. “In everything I built.”
For one impossible second, I think she might break.
Her lips part slightly.
Eyes flickering.
But she doesn’t.
Her chin lifts instead, eyes steady like she refuses to fall apart in front of me.
“Well,” she says softly, voice trembling at the edges, “too bad it’s too late now.”
“You just had to show up, Calvin.” A beat. “That’s all.”
She shakes her head slowly. Not angry. Not broken. Just done.
The air thickens. I stand frozen.
The air thickens around us. I stand there frozen, staring at her like I’m only now understanding the damage I left behind.
And for the first time, I don’t see the girl I lost.
I see the woman who survived me.
Something twists in my gut. Grief, want, memory. All tangled together.
Every instinct in me wants to close the space between us. Pull her in. Kiss her before either of us can think too hard about it.
I remember her too clearly. The warmth of her breath. The way she used to melt against me when the rest of the world disappeared.
My body reacts before my brain catches up. Pulse roaring. Muscles tightening like I’m already moving toward her.
Because some reckless part of me still believes one kiss could undo ten years of damage.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this is it.
I shift forward slightly.
And for one dangerous second… I think she might let me.
The feeling hits hard enough to hurt.
The wind shifts. I blink hard, swallowing pride.
Shame follows right behind it.
No… Not like this. I won’t put that guilt on her.
Jules deserves more than the heat of passion in a moment of pain.
So I stay still. Feet planted. Hands empty.
A long silence stretches between us.
Neither of us speaks. Neither of us looks away.
Then her voice cuts through, quiet but done.
“You seriously have nothing to say?”
She doesn’t wait for my answer.
She just turns and walks away.
Not fast. Just done.
“Wait, Jules.”
She doesn’t stop.
And I don’t chase her.
I just stand there, paralyzed. Unsure how to repair the wreckage silence leaves behind.
Heart wide open, the one I swore I had under control.
Riot’s ring isn’t here. But Jules is disappearing across the field.
And somehow that feels worse.
I stare at the spot where she stood. My fingers close around the folded letter in my pocket.
Maybe it expired years ago. Maybe we did too.
I should tear it up. Save myself the humiliation of hoping there’s still something left to save.
“You’re an idiot,” I mutter.
I look up at the sky, like it might hand me an answer.
But all I’ve got is this burning hole in my pocket.
The letter I never gave her.
The one that could still change everything… or absolutely nothing.
My grip tightens until my knuckles ache.
“Is this what you wanted, Cara?”