33. Salem
SALEM
Ishouldn’t have left. I stood in the hallway, barefoot, with my shoes in one hand and my clutch in the other. Something snagged on Lucy’s text.
I looked down at my other arm. His jacket. I let out a breath that was almost a laugh and wasn’t. I had walked out of that man’s hotel room and taken his jacket with me like it was mine.
I walked to the elevator. The doors opened. I stepped in. My reflection stared back at me from the mirrored walls—hair a mess, lips swollen from use, skin still warm, shoes dangling from one hand. I looked away.
My throat was tight in a way I was refusing to acknowledge.
I pulled out my phone and my thumb hovered over Rowan’s name for a full three seconds, then I scrolled up and called Alba instead.
It rang once.
“Salem. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out into the lobby. It was quiet now, a few chairs pushed out of place, scuff marks on the floor where people had danced hours ago. “I’m in the lobby.”
“Of the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
I crossed the room. “I left. I just—I got up, and I left, and I don’t—” My voice cracked, and I pressed my lips together hard. “I don’t know why I did it. I genuinely don’t know why. Lucy texted him, and it was like a catapult. I just left. I know how he feels about Lucy, but I panicked. ”
Her voice softened. “Take a breath.”
I took one, but it didn’t help as much as advertised.
I pushed through the hotel doors.
The cold hit me, sharp and immediate, and my eyes filled without warning. I stood on the curb for a second, blinking against it, and reached for his jacket, pulling it on over my dress because it was there and warm. Those were the only facts I had.
I raised my hand. A cab idled half a block down, its light on, and it pulled forward.
“Lucy texted him,” I said into the phone. “And I just—panicked. Got up, got dressed, left. He said everything reasonable, and I said I can’t explain it and walked out anyway. He just said—” I pulled the cab door open and got in. “Gray Harbor, please,” I told the driver.
He nodded and pulled into traffic. I settled back against the seat.
“Oh, Salem.”
“I know.”
“Was the text awful?”
“No, it was just Lucy being Lucy. I don’t—”
“Did he ask you to stay?”
“It was implied. I could tell he didn't want me to leave. I wish I could tell him why I did.” I looked down at the jacket sleeves falling past my wrists. “And I took his jacket, to top it off.”
“…You took his jacket.”
“By accident. I grabbed it on the way out, and I didn’t realize until I was already in the hallway.” I looked at the city moving past. “What is the etiquette for this? How do you return a jacket after you’ve stolen it? Do I mail it? Is there a card? Something tasteful, maybe from Anthropologie—”
“Salem.”
“I’m just asking. I feel like there should be a protocol.”
“There is no etiquette for this, Peach.”
The word landed softly, and my eyes filled again, properly this time, and I blinked hard against the window so the driver wouldn’t see.
“I really liked him,” I whispered, more honest than I meant to be. “I really—I don’t do this. I don’t let people in like that. And I did. He’s leaving. He doesn't date or whatever. And there is Lucy, but I don’t even think that is a factor. I just left. In his jacket.”
“I know.”
“Why did I do that?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you have some things to figure out. Not tonight. Tonight, you go home, you sleep, and tomorrow, you and I are getting coffee. We are going to actually talk.”
“Alba—”
“Not a question,” she said. Warm but firm. “You are not going to find the answer to this at hour in the morning in the back of a cab. Go home.”
The city was thinning out around us, buildings giving way to the highway. The lights stretched and scattered.
“He’s a good man,” Alba said. “And you know that. So, get some sleep. This can be salvaged”
I didn’t answer that.
“Good night, Salem.”
“Good night, Alba.”
“Anytime, love.”
I hung up.
The highway opened up ahead of us, long and dark and empty. The cab was warm, and the driver asked nothing of me. I leaned my head back against the seat.
The jacket smelled like Ethan.
Cedar and something underneath it—warm, specific, completely his. It settled around me in the dark, and I had nowhere to put that feeling, so I sat in it, the city falling away behind the windows, Gray Harbor somewhere ahead in the dark.
I didn’t take it off.
I wasn’t ready to give it up yet.