3. Chapter 3
John
Istared at the half-assembled IKEA dresser like it had personally offended me.
Wooden dowels, screws, cam locks, and sad little instruction diagrams were scattered across the floor. I was an architect. I built detailed scale models for a living. I understood spatial reasoning. And yet somehow, this seventy-nine-dollar piece of engineered wood was absolutely destroying me.
“This cannot be that hard,” I muttered, trying to fit piece B into slot C, which absolutely refused to accept that fate.
My phone buzzed.
Thank God.
“Seth,” I answered, out of breath like I’d been wrestling furniture - because I had. “Please tell me you’re close. This dresser is one step away from becoming firewood.”
He sighed. “It might be a bit. Lindsay wants me to help her rearrange the bedroom again.”
I ran a hand down my face. “So… you’re bailing.”
“It’s temporary bailing,” he said. “We’re still meeting at Scot’s tonight, right?”
My chest tightened at the reminder.
Last night flashed back hard and fast. Cate’s terrified scream, the force of her slamming into me, her body pressed against mine. The way she’d laughed after. The way she’d looked at me like she couldn’t decide whether to be embarrassed or brave.
And that blush…
She’d bolted the first chance she got. There was no logical reason to believe she’d actually show up tonight.
Still… part of me hoped.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “We’re still on.”
“Cool. Gotta go before Lindsay starts narrating her feng shui strategy again.”
The call clicked off.
I dropped my phone onto the floor and looked around at the wreckage of my living room. I had tools everywhere. Wood dust. One drawer assembled backward. Another drawer that appeared to be missing entirely.
Why did I think I could do this alone?
My stomach growled loudly enough to accuse me of negligence.
“Lunch,” I declared, pushing to my feet.
Baby, my golden retriever and self-appointed shadow, lifted her head from her bed by the back door, tail thumping.
“You hungry?” I asked.
She barked once, decisive and loud.
“That’s a yes.”
I grabbed my keys and opened the door into the garage.
The afternoon sun bounced off the hood of my old ’72 Ford - green, a little dented, with a white stripe and more sentimental value than common sense.
It had been my dad’s. I wasn’t eager to let it go, even though it required more coddling than a toddler.
“Come on, girl,” I said, motioning for Baby to hop in.
Instead of jumping into the truck like the well-trained angel she usually pretended to be, she froze, locked onto something, then took off like a shot.
“Baby! HEY!”
She sprinted out of the garage and down the block, barking triumphantly as a cat bolted ahead of her.
You’ve GOT to be kidding me.
I dove into the truck and took off after her, leaning halfway out the window.
“Baby! Stop! BABY!”
She did not stop.
She rounded a corner, vaulted over a short chain-link fence like she’d been training for the Olympics, and disappeared.
I slammed the brakes, parked mostly on the sidewalk, and went after her on foot.
“Baby!”
I jumped one fence. Then another. Then a third fence I swear grew taller by the second.
My lungs burned. My legs cursed me for ever abandoning the gym.
I stopped in someone’s backyard, bent over and wheezing like I was ninety.
That’s when I heard it, a shriek… followed by a heavy thud.
My heart launched straight into my throat.
“Baby!”
I sprinted toward the sound.
She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, tail wagging like a propeller, licking the face of a fallen woman who was trying, and failing, to fend her off.
I jogged the last few feet, grabbed Baby’s collar, and pulled her back.
“Oh my God, I am so…”
And then I saw her face and the breath punched right out of me.
Cate.
Her hair was a little wild, her cheeks flushed from cold and shock, and when her eyes met mine, it felt like getting blindsided all over again - only this time, softer. Warmer. More dangerous.
A slow grin pulled across my mouth before I could stop it.
“Cate?” I asked, way too hopeful for someone who’d technically just tackled her with a dog.
She blinked up at me, recognition flaring.
For the smallest second, her lips curved too, and my day instantly got a hell of a lot better.