Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I’ve been avoiding this. Avoiding him. It’s been three days since Tori told me about the trade talks, and I still haven’t figured out what to say. Part of me wants to scream at him. Part of me wants to cry. Most of me just wants to understand why he couldn’t trust me with the truth.
Through the window, I watch them climb out of Zayden’s SUV. Zayden says something that makes him gesture toward the house. Banks nods, and even from here—even through a window, at a distance—I can see the tension in his shoulders and the weariness in his posture.
He looks tired. More tired than when I saw him at the facility. Like he’s been carrying something heavy, and it’s finally starting to crush him.
Good. He should be tired. It’s probably exhausting trying to hide the truth from me.
The front door opens, and there he is.
His eyes find mine immediately, and something complicated passes across his face—relief, guilt, fear—all tangled together in an expression I’ve never seen him wear before.
“Win,” he says.
“Banks.”
The single word falls between us like a stone into still water, ripples spreading outward. Everyone feels it—the shift in the room, the sudden tension.
Zayden glances between us, clearly sensing the storm about to break. He’s known Banks longer than anyone; he can probably read the situation better than I can.
“I’m gonna… help with the truck,” he says carefully. “Logan, show me where things should go.”
Logan—finally reading the room—nods and sets down his beer. “Yeah, there’s a dresser that’s been giving us trouble. Rhys, Weston, come help.”
Rhys pushes off the couch without argument. Weston lingers in the doorway, his dark eyes narrowing as he looks at Banks and then at me. There’s something almost protective in his expression, which is bizarre given that we met just an hour ago.
“You need anything?” he asks me.
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
He nods once—short and decisive—and follows the others out. The door clicks shut behind him, and then it’s just me and Banks, alone in Logan’s half-furnished living room filled with too many boxes and not enough air.
The silence is suffocating.
Outside, I can hear the guys laughing about something, the scrape of furniture against the truck bed. Normal sounds. Happy sounds. Everything in here feels the opposite.
“I was going to call you,” Banks starts.
“Were you?”
“Yes. I just—I needed to figure out what to say.”
“How about the truth?” I take a step toward him, my sneakers squeaking against the hardwood. “Were you going to tell me you might be traded?”
His face cycles through emotions—shock that I know, guilt that he hid it, and something darker beneath that I can’t name. His jaw works, the muscle ticking, and he shoves his hands in his pockets as if he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter how. Were you going to tell me?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze drops to the floor, to his shoes, anywhere but my face.
That’s answer enough.
“Banks.” I’m fighting to keep my voice steady, but it’s a losing battle. “I thought I did something wrong. I’ve spent the last week thinking you were pulling away because of me—because you were done with this, with us. I’ve been tearing myself apart trying to figure out what I did.”
“It’s not about you.”
“That’s the problem!” The words explode out of me, louder than I intended, bouncing off the high ceilings. “You don’t let me in. You have this whole crisis happening, your entire future is uncertain, and you just… shut me out. Like I’m not even part of your life.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Worry me?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. The sound is harsh even to my own ears. “Banks, that’s not your call to make. I thought we were… I don’t know what I thought. Never mind.” I sound so childish, so stupid for ever thinking…
“I don’t know how to do this.” His voice is rough, strained, cracking at the edges. “I told you that. I don’t know how to let people in.”
“And I told you we’d figure it out together. But you have to actually let me try.” I press my hands against my eyes, willing myself not to cry. Not here. Not yet. “I asked you directly what was wrong, multiple times. And you lied to my face.”
“I didn’t lie—”
“You said, ‘It’s not about you’ and ‘Nothing to talk about.’ That’s lying, Banks. That’s deciding I don’t deserve to know what’s happening in our relationship. That’s treating me like I’m outside your life instead of part of it.”
He’s silent. His jaw is tight, his hands still shoved in his pockets, every line of his body radiating tension. He looks like a man bracing for a blow, waiting for the impact he knows is coming.
Part of me wants to stop, to soften, to cross the space between us, wrap my arms around him, and tell him it’s okay—that we can figure this out, that I forgive him.
But I can’t. Because it’s not okay. And I’m not sure I do forgive him.
Not to mention, he hasn’t even apologized.
“This is why I don’t do relationships.” His voice is flat now, hollow. “People leave. Everyone leaves. Why would I let myself need someone who’s just going to—”
“I’m not leaving!” I throw my hands up in frustration. “You’re the one who might leave! You’re the one with one foot out the door, already bracing for goodbye. I’m standing right here, Banks. I’ve been standing right here this whole time, trying to be part of your life, and you won’t let me in.”
“That’s exactly my point. I can’t control it. I can’t control any of it. The trade, the contract, my whole goddamn future—it’s not up to me. And if I let myself need you, and then I have to go—”
“So you just shut down? Push me away?” I stare at him, seeing it all so clearly now: the walls, the distance, the way he pulls back every time things get real.
The little boy who bounced from foster home to foster home, learning that love is temporary, that everyone leaves, that protecting yourself means never letting anyone close enough to hurt you.
“That’s your plan? Reject love before it can reject you? ”
He doesn’t deny it. He just stands there, looking wrecked, as if I’ve reached inside his chest and grabbed something he didn’t want me to see.
“I can’t do this, Banks.” My voice cracks. I don’t care anymore. The tears are coming, and I can’t stop them. “I can’t be with someone who won’t let me love them.”
The word lands between us like a bomb.
Love.
I didn’t mean to say it. It just came out—the truth I’ve been dancing around for weeks, finally spoken aloud in a half-empty townhouse in Brooklyn, surrounded by other people’s furniture and the wreckage of what we were trying to build. I could love him. Maybe I already do.
Banks’s expression shifts, something raw and desperate flashing in his eyes. His whole body leans toward me, as if he’s fighting the urge to close the distance.
“Win—”
“I need some space.”
I’m moving before I can stop myself, grabbing my bag from where I dropped it on the counter and heading for the door. My vision is blurry. My chest is tight. I can’t breathe in here, can’t think, can’t be near him without falling apart completely.
“Winnie, wait—”
I don’t wait.
I push through the front door, nearly colliding with Zayden on the steps. He catches my arm, steadying me, his eyes widening when he sees my face.
“Winnie? What—”
“I’m fine,” I manage. “I just—I have to go.”
I pull away and keep moving, past Logan, Rhys, and Weston, who are frozen near the truck, their faces registering confusion and concern. I hear Banks behind me, calling my name, his footsteps on the stairs.
“Winnie! Wait, please—”
I don’t turn around.
I get in my car and catch a glimpse of Banks in my rearview mirror—standing on the sidewalk, looking gutted, Zayden’s hand on his shoulder holding him back—and then I pull away from the curb, putting distance between us.
The tears come before I make it to the end of the block.
I pull over somewhere—a random street—and let myself sob. Ugly crying, the kind that makes your whole body shake, the kind you can only do alone because it’s too raw for witnesses.
I said I loved him.
I said I loved him, and he just stood there.
Now I don’t know if I’ve lost him forever or if I ever really had him at all.