Chapter 9
LOVE, LOSS, AND LE CREUSET
NOLAN
I’m sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, a half-empty beer bottle hanging from my fingers. The game’s on, but I’m not watching. Left work early, told everyone I was going to “do research” on Asher Cross.
Lies.
I just needed out.
And instead of researching anything, I drove to a clinic and got tested. Just to be sure. Just to shut down the voice in my head whispering: what if Chloe and Jackson gave you more than mental flashbacks to remember them by?
Now I’m here. Staring at nothing. Letting time crawl by while I wait for it to give me answers, or maybe some clarity, or relief.
Anything really.
What I get is silence.
Chloe’s gone.
Jackson’s a smug bastard.
And Thatcher just handed me a career-defining opportunity…with Jackson surgically attached like a parasitic intern who snorted a line of corporate buzzwords and called it strategy.
I should walk. I should quit. But I’ve worked too hard for too long to let them take this from me.
No. If anyone should leave, it’s Jackson. He’s the problem. Not me.
But while he’s out there, thriving. I’m sitting here, mulling over the truth: I should’ve seen it coming.
The warning signs. The pulled-back affection. The headaches. The sex that went from routine to nonexistent.
And now, I’m looking back at the dwindling intimacy with Chloe like an idiot searching for clues in a murder mystery.
The victim? My dignity.
The suspect? Her wandering libido.
The motive? A textbook case of grass-is-greener syndrome, with a dick attached
I’ve retraced every moment, hunting for the red flags. I’ve come the conclusion that I didn’t miss them. I ignored them because I was scared of what it meant. And deep down, I thought if I stayed steady enough, stayed safe enough, then I would be enough.
Turns out, steady and safe don’t mean shit when you’re competing with the thrill of someone new.
I’ve learned that lesson before. Too many times.
First Natalie Stone. My first kiss, first “real” love—went to homecoming with Cash Neilson without even breaking up with me. I showed up to pick her up in my dad’s old suit and watched her parents take pictures of them in the rose garden.
Classy.
College? That was Professor McKay. I didn’t know she was married. Not until I found her husband waiting in her office.
And then there was Elijah Nichols. The mentor I thought was building me up, only to walk into a boardroom and watch him pitch my work—my ideas, my concepts—as his own.
“That’s the game, kid,” he said afterward. “If your stuff’s good enough to steal, it means you’re worth something.”
Right.
So I adapted. Hardened. Learned to keep things close to the vest. Because trust is leverage. Vulnerability is legal tender. And once you run out, no one gives a damn about the debt they owe you.
But Chloe? She slipped past all my defenses. Took everything I gave freely and handed it to someone else. Someone who didn’t earn it. Who didn’t deserve it.
And I’m the idiot holding the receipt for a future that never existed.
My grip tightens around the bottle.
The stupid pine-patchouli candle she loved so much is drifting through the air, the throw blanket folded just so, the bookshelf perfectly symmetrical.
I hate that fucking candle. I want to mess up that fucking blanket. And I want smash that fucking bookshelf to bits.
Then snap a pic off all of it and send it to her.
But that would go against why I deleted her number in the first place.
And besides, her silence is better than any excuse she’d give me.
Still, it guts me.
Because a year should mean something. Apparently, it meant everything to me, and nothing to her.
After draining the rest of the beer, I set the bottle down, rub my eyes. Her self-help book—Let That Shit Go—sits on the coffee table, stupid and cheerful in its faux-minimalist font.
I pick it up. Flip it open in my hands.
I can’t take this shit anymore.
I rip it in half.
The tearing sound is so satisfying. Pages scatter across the floor like ashes. It’s book murder. And I love it.
I keep going until there’s nothing left but the hardback cover.
Then I sit in the middle of my new mess, surrounded by pages full of advice she never followed and I never needed.
And I feel… nothing.
Just numb.
I need something else.
My eyes land on the bookshelf.
That photo of us—her windblown, laughing. Me, looking at her instead of the camera. A hiking trip. Her idea. I hate hiking. But I went.
Because she loved it. And I loved her.
The photo is a lie. A frozen moment from a story I didn’t know was already ending.
A part of me wants to laugh about all this. But laughter only masks the ache for so long before it breaks, leaving behind a dull, empty sadness. Because the truth is, I wasn’t enough for her.
And while she was out having her vibrant extracurriculars, I was in the shower convincing myself this was just a rough patch.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I don’t look at it right away. I know what it is.
Nothing urgent. Nothing I’m ready for.
Still, I swipe it open. No new messages. But a missed call from a number I know by heart.
Dad.
It’s been weeks since we spoke. Weeks since the last call ended with raised voices and a hollow click.
But it’s the way my chest feels too tight, too raw, that makes me hit call before I think better of it.
It rings.
Once. Twice.
“Nolan?” His voice scrapes across the line, rough, a little too careful. He’s trying to place me.
“Hey,” I say, clearing my throat. “Sorry it’s late.”
Silence blooms. Not hostile. Just… blank.
“Something happen?” he asks eventually.
Even though they only met once, I almost tell him about Chloe. About the whole wreckage of it. About how he was right—people leave. People always leave.
But I can’t.
Some memories are all he has left. I’m not about to stain them with mine.
“Nothing,” I lie. “Had a rough day.”
Another pause. My fingers tremble against the phone.
“Don’t get soft,” he mutters finally, voice fading at the edges. “Rough days make you better.”
A dry laugh escapes me.
“You know,” he says after a moment, tone softening—an old habit. “Your mother used to say you get your stubbornness from me.”
I don’t answer. I sit there, breathing him in, this version of him. The one that flickers in and out like old radio.
“He’s just like his mother,” I remember him saying once.
I was ten. Small. Stupid enough to think love was unconditional.
“Nolan is young. Cut him a break,” my uncle had argued.
But even then, there’d been that undertow of doubt.
“Too much heart,” my dad had said, like it was a flaw. “Too much trust. You’ll see. One day he’ll figure it out. Being the nice guy will get you nowhere.”
I press the heel of my hand into my eye. He was right. I did figure it out. But not soon enough.
“Well,” he says a little softer. “I guess it’s good to hear your voice.”
I close my eyes. “Yeah. You too.”
We sit in it for a second. Not a connection. Not a reconciliation. Just a layover in familiar silence.
“Call me when it’s a good day,” he says, a trace of hope threading the words.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Okay.”
The line clicks.
For a long time, I sit there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the silence.
Leaning back, I rub at the bridge of my nose, thoughts swirling, and like an old habit, I start replaying my mistakes. Self-blame is practically second nature.
I stand, move over to the picture of Chloe and I then grab it and head up to my rooftop terrace. The warm night air rushes in, carrying the scent of sweet florals.
The city vibrates below, oblivious to my heartbreak.
Fixing things with Chloe started small. She’d get quiet after an argument, her frustration radiating in waves until I caved and apologized—sometimes for things I didn’t even do. It was easier that way. Keep the peace, Nolan. Don’t rock the boat. Just bottle it and move on.
Except now, the boat is capsized, and I’m drowning in the wreckage.
And I missed all of it.
I’ve come to realize that the smug fucking smirk engraved in Jackson’s face was never just a smirk...
It was a message.
And all those lingering glances at Chloe during company parties.
A warning.
The way he found a reason to stick around whenever she showed up to meet me after work.
A claim.
It’s so obvious now.
This is what happens when you see the angles no one else does. When you read between the lines, anticipate the move before it happens, only to realize you missed the one right in front of you.
This is what I get for being the closer. For knowing how to seal the deal, secure the outcome. Except when it comes to the people who actually matter.
A year. One fucking year, gone.
“Well, sweetheart.” My voice is edged with something too bitter to be nostalgia. “Thanks for the lesson. Really top-tier betrayal—textbook, even.”
My grip tightens.
“Hope he was worth it.”
I launch the frame into the night, watching it disappear into the darkness like the future I once thought we had. It smashes against a building. Someone yells. A car alarm bleats once. Then silence.
One more step toward freedom.
A traitorous tear threatens to stray. But fuck that. I’m not crying over her. The only tears Chloe’s shedding have Jackson’s name attached.
So fuck her. Fuck them.
Back inside, I shut the door behind me like I’m sealing off whatever was left of her in my life. But the emptiness that follows isn’t as satisfying as I hoped.
I need a distraction before Chloe’s picture isn’t the only thing I hurl off that balcony tonight.
My phone catches my eye. The memory of Unknown sneaks in. I grab my phone, unlock it then scroll through the messages. Quick-witted. Not unkind.
She didn’t judge me. She made me laugh when I felt like my insides were being fed through a shredder.
Should I text again? Probably not. But that sliver of connection was enough to keep my head above water last night. And I’ll never forget that.
I should thank her. Even though I already did.
My fingers linger over the keyboard.