Chapter 32 #2
Instead, I stepped toward him. To this day, I don’t know where I found the strength—I just know I did.
I pulled that woman away from him by her hair and slapped him across the face so hard the bottle dropped and shattered at his feet.
He blinked at me like I was a hallucination—like he couldn’t tell if I was real or just another ghost behind his glassy eyes.
“Fuck you, Roderick Wilder. It’s over,” I told him. “We’re over.”
He stumbled after me, shirt half-open, belt hanging loose, eyes glossy with booze and regret.
Or maybe just confusion. Maybe both. His voice cracked, unraveling like thread in a storm.
“Don’t go. This . . . don’t leave me, baby.
I didn’t know she was—it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t even realize—Kit, please—”
He was too fucked up to understand what he’d done. Or maybe he did know and just didn’t care enough to realize it hurt me. Maybe that was the worst part. Either way, it didn’t matter.
It was over. I was done with him.
Except now he’s standing right in front of me, years later, mouth twitching with that same damn smirk—the one I used to kiss off his face—and I hate that it still affects me. His voice is tinged with that dangerous edge that used to make me come undone with just one whisper in my ear.
His eyes lock onto mine like he’s flipping through our greatest hits—every moan, every fight, every time we broke each other and kept coming back for more.
And maybe he does own those memories.
Because no matter how many times I’ve told myself I’m done with him—done with the scars, the sex, the slow-burn heartbreak—my body doesn’t fucking listen.
It remembers.
It remembers how he touched me like I was air and he was suffocating. How he murmured my name between kisses, breathless and low, like it was the only word that ever mattered. How we used to fuck like we were trying to erase the world around us—like stopping meant shattering.
And I hate him for still having that power.
I hate myself more for wanting him to use it again.
For letting every man after him treat me like an afterthought, like I was only ever good for creating lyrics and backseat sex.
Maybe that’s why I’m with Timothy.
Sweet, reliable, emotionally beige Timothy. The safe choice. The guy who tells me I’m pretty, asks if I’ve eaten, and doesn’t fuck with my head or my heart. With Timothy, everything is surface level. No real highs, no devastating lows. He keeps things light and manageable. Predictable.
I learnt that if I don’t fall, I can’t be the girl sobbing on a bathroom floor again.
I’ve been burned too much.
Let’s not forget Jagger fucking Jones. The rebound I ran to after Roderick.
A bad boy with a voice like whiskey and a sex drive that could burn down cities.
The first time we fucked was in a sound booth at my dad’s studio.
It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even fully consensual on a spiritual level—I think I just needed to feel something louder than pain.
The point is, my dating history—including Roderick—reads like a cautionary tale wrapped up in a Billboard playlist. Like one of those burned CDs you regret making the second you hear track two. “What the Fuck Were You Thinking, Kit?” scrawled across it in Sharpie.
Honestly, my love life is a montage of “what was I thinking” scored by a symphony of “I told you so.”
My therapist once asked, “Where was your father during all of this?”
The answer is pretty simple. He disappeared when Mom died. He was usually drunk, working, and grieving my mom while banging women half his age because he was Connor Dempsey.
Seattle’s very own rock god and self-described talent genius. He’s the one who introduced me to Jagger, by the way. Said we’d make beautiful music together. He meant it literally, but mostly I got manipulated into co-writing songs and pretending orgasms weren’t part of the process.
Jagger was the first of many musicians my father showcased to me, like broken instruments I was supposed to fix. I was the muse, the magic, the girl who made them feel something just long enough to write a platinum single and disappear.
And I let them. For way too long.
Because I wanted to matter.
My taste in men is . . . a disaster. A cosmic joke with a punchline that reads: You’re doomed to fall for narcissistic rockstars with unresolved trauma and cheekbones that should be illegal.
And this? This moment?
Staring into Roderick Wilder’s eyes, like I still remember how his actions gutted me?
This is a bad idea with a pulse.
The fact that my knees haven’t buckled is a fucking miracle.
Because standing this close, I swear I can still feel the scrape of his stubble on the inside of my thighs. I still know exactly how he groans when he’s buried deep, how his fingers tighten on my hips right before he—
No.
No. No. No.
The problem with society is that we forgive and normalize asshole behavior way too easily. We let men get away with their actions and don’t even heal emotionally because that’s what we were taught from an early age.
It’s exhausting to let anyone walk all over you and ask, “Would you like to add fries with that?” Instead of saying ‘fuck you’ and walking away.
I should probably unpack that in therapy.
Assuming I stop canceling my sessions because I’m too busy putting out fires—or dodging the ones I lit myself.
“So, in conclusion . . .” Roderick drawls, voice sliding into the room like warm silk over bare skin. Like he’s trying to fuck me with syllables. “You don’t have time for me?”
He leans in just slightly.
Just enough for me to catch it—that scent I’d recognize anywhere. Cedar. Smoke. Sin. Like backstage sex and stolen cologne you borrow from a stranger and never give back.
And all I can think is: What’s wrong with you, Kit? Because it seems like I still want him—or I’m just horny and he just happens to be here.
The grin he flashes is pure sin. Arrogant. Lazy. Fucking lethal. That mouth got to me more times than I’ll ever admit. It’s the same mouth that used to whisper filthy things against my neck, the same mouth that bruised my skin and made promises he obviously never kept.
“Huh, princess?” he adds, with that maddening baritone that vibrates beneath my skin. His brow arches, like he’s waiting for me to come undone. Like he’s already imagining it. And maybe he is.
Probably Bernice is ready to melt into the floor. No doubt that any woman within a five-mile radius is probably weak in the knees right now.
Me?
I’m immune.
Okay, that’s a lie. But I want to scream something like, “Get the fuck out of here,” even though I don’t.
Not even when he’s so fucking infuriating.
The way he just stands there—too still, too unreadable—triggers something wild inside me. That black sweatshirt stretches across his shoulders like it’s been clinging to him all day, worn thin in spots and still somehow infuriatingly sexy.
Like everything on him is an invitation he doesn’t bother sending. His hair’s a disaster—sex-tousled and disheveled in a way that says he’s either been dragging his hands through it in frustration . . . or because someone had their fingers buried in it while he was making them come.
And I hate that I’m already wondering who’s warming his bed. Still bitter because he forgot me so easily. As if I were nothing—a nobody.
His eyes used to look at me like I was a song stuck in his throat, a note he couldn’t quite hold long enough but never stopped trying to reach. Now? I have no idea what he’s thinking.
He’s infuriating. Infuriating and beautiful and standing way too fucking close.
Close enough that if I exhaled too hard, I’d brush against him. Close enough that I remember exactly how his breath felt against my collarbone. Close enough that if he said one more goddamn word in that sex-drenched voice, I might slap him or climb him like a fucking tree.
But I won’t care.
I will never care about him again.
Ever.
“Kit, I need to know where I’m standing,” he says.
“She’ll take care of you,” Bernice assures him because it’s obvious that all she cares about is this company and my father.
Me? I could die in a hole, and she wouldn’t care as long as I’ve done my job.