Crossing The Line 5 (The Avalon Wolves #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

DECLAN

The whole flight home, I practiced what I would say to Sutton. I missed her. Damn, I couldn’t believe how much I missed her.

I felt the absence. Honestly, I’d felt the absence before I left for Seattle.

Ashton slept beside me with his mouth open and his neck pillow cockeyed to one side. I had time. I hate sleeping on planes. I think I want to know if we’re going down. I want to have those last few seconds to say my goodbyes.

I nudge Ashton before he can drool on me.

His head flops to the other side.

My thoughts drift back to what I’m going to say to Sutton.

I went. I saw. And I still choose you.

That was the version I kept coming back to. Simple. No hedging, no lengthy explanation, no bringing up my dad or the contract or any of the things that had been slowly building a wall between us before camp. Just that. Three words—I choose you.

That had to be enough. I think she'll feel a lot better now that I’ve gone to Seattle. I got that out of the way. It had been the elephant in our relationship for too long.

I played out our reunion a dozen different ways in my head. Her face when I walked through the door. Maybe she’d be waiting for me naked on her bed. Or my bed.

Naked was always a good way to greet a guy.

I played out every version of our reunion, including the bad ones.

Because, as much as I don’t want to acknowledge it, I can’t forget the email I saw about her housing. She never mentioned it, so I didn’t either. I told myself it was a misunderstanding. She never removed her name from the list of available housing.

That had to be it.

I am prepared for all the outcomes.

It's how I approach a game and everything. Know the play before you're in it.

The plane lands, Ashton wakes up, and then it’s a hustle to get off the plane and through baggage claim. It feels like it’s taking forever.

I’m so anxious to see her. With my practice schedule at camp and all the other activities, I barely had time to talk to Sutton. I missed her so much.

I notice something is off the second we pull into the driveway. I shake it off because I’m just being paranoid. It’s the weeks apart and the lack of communication that have me feeling jittery.

"Home sweet home," Ashton says, dragging his bag out of the Uber.

I don't answer. I'm already at the front door.

The house smells like it always does. Five male athletes living under one roof have a very particular odor. Not necessarily bad, but after you’ve been gone a while, you notice. The guys are scattered around the living room. Crew is texting on his phone while Holden and Pierce play on the PS5.

Everything looks the same.

But it’s not.

I feel it.

I drop my bag at the bottom of the stairs.

I don't even go to my room first.

Her door is partially open. It’s too quiet. No music. No muttering in frustration at a lesson she’s trying to read. It’s just still.

I tell myself she's at the lab. Or practice. She’s on a grocery run.

I push the door all the way open anyway.

The bed is stripped. Just a bare mattress. Her textbooks are gone from the desk, and there is no charger cord on the windowsill. No snacks. Her shower caddy is missing from the dresser where it always sits next to a picture of the two of us.

The picture is gone as well.

Everything is gone.

She’s gone.

I stand in the doorway, and I don't move.

I can’t move.

My brain is trying to process what I’m seeing.

“What in the actual hell?” I murmur when my eyes and brain sync up.

I pull out my phone and call her.

The phone rings four times and then goes to voicemail. Her voice sounds a little formal, just like it always does in recordings, asking me to leave a message. I don't. I hang up and call again.

Voicemail.

I text her: Hey. I'm home. Where are you?

The text goes through—one checkmark. I wait for it to turn to two. I wait longer than I should before I accept that she's probably busy. I put mine in my pocket and go downstairs.

The video game is off, and I feel it. They know something.

Crew is on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, watching highlights. Pierce is in the kitchen, eating directly from a container of leftover pasta. Holden is in the armchair across from Crew, holding his phone. Normal Saturday afternoon. Like nothing's different.

But it is, and they know it.

"When did Sutton move out?" I ask.

There's a half-second pause where three separate people don't quite look at me, and in that half-second, I learn everything I actually need to know.

Crew looks at Pierce. Then Holden. They were both way too busy to answer me. "She, uh. Left her key on the kitchen counter,” Crew says. “Didn't make a big thing of it."

"When."

"A few days ago."

Pierce sets down the pasta container and walks into the living room. "We figured you knew."

"I didn't know."

Another pause. Longer this time.

Ashton comes into the living room in a fresh pair of sweats and a hoodie. "I hate the way airplanes smell. I always feel like I stink after a long flight. I need food and—" He stops. Reads the room in the way Ashton always reads rooms. "What did I miss?"

"Sutton moved out," Crew says.

Ashton looks at me.

"While we were gone," I say.

Something flickers across his face that isn't quite surprise. That's the part that sticks. Ashton has been my best friend for four years. The look on his face is not quite surprise.

"You knew," I say.

"I didn't know. I suspected." He rubs his hands over his face. "She had that look before we left. Like she was building up to something."

"And you didn't tell me."

"Because I didn't know. I didn’t ask.”

I look around the room. Crew is very focused on the television. Pierce has returned to his pasta with a dedication that suggests he would rather be somewhere else. Holden's phone has apparently become the most interesting thing he's ever seen.

"All of you knew something was off."

No one answers, which is its own answer.

I turn around and go upstairs before I say something I'll regret. I'm not angry at them. Not really. But I am pissed.

They didn't do anything. They saw what they saw, and they kept quiet. Crew didn’t think it might be worth a minute of his time to call and tell me my girlfriend moved out? Mention she was packing her shit while I was two thousand miles away and couldn't do anything about it?

My room is exactly the same as I left it—bed unmade and my gear bag kicked into the corner.

I sit on the edge of my bed and look at my phone. No new messages. No missed calls. The text I sent is still sitting there with its single blue check mark, unread.

I crafted my speech on the plane, and it was all for nothing.

I stare at the wall between my room and hers.

During two weeks of development camp, I didn't sleep more than five hours straight.

Every morning, I woke up reaching for my phone, and found that she'd sent something small and meaningless.

A photo of the coffee she was drinking, a picture of the weather, or a dog she saw while on a run.

Sometimes, just a simple text that said good morning or good luck.

Every one of those small messages felt like enough.

It felt like proof that we were okay—just busy.

We were both waiting for the conversation.

It was supposed to be a beginning, not an end.

I scroll back through the thread now. The last message she sent me was last night. A photo of the forensics lab at six in the morning, with a caption that said the building is haunted, sending proof. I texted back a ghost emoji, and she sent a string of them, then nothing.

It seemed normal. I assumed she was back on campus and all was well.

She said we’d talk when I got home. That implied she'd be here.

She's not here.

I call one more time. Voicemail again. I sit with the phone in my hand. I don't leave a message because there's nothing I can say into the void of a recording that brings her back. Nothing that fixes what I wasn’t aware was broken.