Chapter 16 Lucy
Lucy
That was the plan; I was going to tell him anyway.
I'd bring Gabrielle to the station like I always did, find Cal, and finally say the things we’d been dancing around for weeks.
I practiced the words in my head the whole drive over, rehearsing them like lines in a play as if by saying them enough times, I could make them feel less painful.
As if repetition could dull the edge of a truth I wasn't sure I was ready to face.
I have feelings for you. Real ones. And I think you have them for me too.
It sounded simple and direct, but for me, it was terrifying.
The almost-kiss had changed something. Cracked open a door I'd been keeping locked, let light into spaces I'd convinced myself were better left dark.
I'd spent the last two days replaying every moment.
His hand on my face. His breath against my lips.
The way he'd looked at me like I was something precious, something worth wanting. It had been years since I’d felt this way.
I had spent all that time convincing myself otherwise, building walls out of habit and necessity. I was out of practice
And then the way he'd left. The things he'd said at my door, his voice rough and uncertain. There are things I should tell you. Things you don't know.
I'd lain awake that night wondering what he meant. What secrets could he possibly be carrying that would change anything between us? I'd come up empty. Whatever it was, I'd told him the truth: nothing could change how I felt.
I was done pretending and being careful. I couldn't wait any longer for permission to feel something other than grief. Done waiting for permission to feel something other than grief.
Gabrielle babbled in her car seat as I pulled into the station parking lot. She'd been in a good mood all morning, full of coos and gummy smiles, like she knew this day was going to be important. I lifted her out, settled her against my hip, and walked toward the bay doors.
The station was busy. A couple of probies were washing one of the engines, soap suds sliding down the gleaming red paint.
The smell of diesel and industrial soap hit me as I stepped inside, familiar now in a way it hadn't been a few months ago.
This place had become part of my life. These people had become my family.
Owen was up on a ladder doing something to the ceiling, and I waved when he looked down. He waved back, then climbed down and crossed to meet me.
"There's my favorite girl." He reached for Gabrielle, and she went to him willingly, her small hands grabbing at his shirt. "She’s all rolls and cheeks lately."
"She's eating like a teenager," Somehow, I agreed. "I can barely keep up with the formula."
Owen smiled. "Cal's in the kitchen. Just so you know."
Something in his tone made me look at him more closely. "Everything okay?"
"Think so. He's been distracted lately, but—" He shrugged. "Seems like a good kind of distraction, if you know what I mean."
I felt heat rise to my cheeks. Owen's smile widened.
"Go on," as if he knew what I was about to do. "I'll keep this one entertained."
I hesitated. "You sure?"
"Lucy." He gave me a look. "Go."
I went.
Riley passed me in the hallway and raised an eyebrow at my expression. But then, her face shifted abruptly. The hardness vanished, replaced by a real smile, one that softened her sharp features in a way I rarely saw. She didn't say a word, just kept walking.
Everyone knew what was going to happen; I realized that suddenly. The whole crew had probably been watching us circle each other for weeks, waiting for one of us to finally make a move.
Well. The day finally came.
I smoothed my hair, took a breath, and headed for the kitchen. My heart was beating too fast, my palms sweating like I was sixteen again, about to ask a boy to prom. Ridiculous. I was a grown woman. A mother. I'd survived loss and grief and an abusive ex who'd tried to destroy me.
I could do this.
I was almost in the kitchen when I heard voices. Cal's voice, low and rough, and Liam's, quieter, harder to make out. I slowed without meaning to, not wanting to interrupt, and then I heard a name that stopped me cold.
Mateo.
I should have walked away.
Should have cleared my throat, announced my presence, given them privacy. That's what a decent person would have done. That's what I would have done, any other day, with any other conversation.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Could only stand there in the hallway, hidden by the angle of the door, listening to words that weren't meant for me.
"...carrying this for three years, man." Liam's voice, gentle but firm. "At some point, you gotta let yourself off the hook."
"It's not that simple." Cal sounded exhausted. Defeated in a way I'd never heard from him before.
"It is that simple. Mateo would want—"
"Don't." Sharp, almost harsh. "Don't tell me what Mateo would want."
Silence. I pressed my back against the wall, heart pounding so loud I was sure they could hear it.
"Cal." Liam's voice again, softer now. "You've been punishing yourself for three years. For something that wasn't your fault. You couldn't have saved him. You know that."
"I could have been faster. Could have gotten to him sooner."
"The ceiling came down. There was nothing anyone could have done."
"I was his captain." Cal's voice cracked. "I was supposed to bring him home."
My hand found my mouth, pressing hard against my lips to keep from making a sound. I'd known Cal carried guilt about Mateo's death. I'd seen it in the way he sometimes went distant when we talked about the past. But I'd never heard it like this. Never heard the raw wound underneath.
"You did everything you could," Liam said. "And you've been doing everything since. The promise, watching over Lucy, all of it. Mateo would be grateful, man. He'd be—"
"The promise isn't the problem."
Silence.
"Then what is?"
When Cal spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I promised him, Liam. The night he died, I held him in that warehouse and I promised him I would take care of her."
The floor tilted beneath my feet.
"That's why I moved into her building. Six months ago, when she came back to town. I found out where she was living and I moved into the apartment across the hall."
No.
"That's why I've been there for everything. The texts, Evan, Gabrielle, all of it." A pause. A ragged breath. "I made a promise to a dying man, and I've spent three years trying to figure out how to keep it without—"
The words echoed in my head, drowning out everything else. My vision blurred at the edges. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears, feel it in my throat, a roar of blood and panic that swallowed the rest of the conversation whole.
"Without falling in love with her?" Liam finished.
But I didn't hear it. Didn't hear anything except the truth I'd just learned, playing on a loop, rearranging everything I thought I knew.
He moved into my building because of a promise. Not coincidence. Not fate. A deliberate choice to keep a vow he'd made to Mateo.
Everything we'd built. Every moment I'd thought was real. It all started because Cal made a vow to a dying man and was too honorable to break it.
I don't know how long I stood there. Long enough for the conversation to shift, for Liam to say something I couldn't hear, for Cal to respond in a voice too low to make out.
Long enough for the shock to harden into something else. Something colder. Something that felt like armor.
I stepped into the doorway.
Cal saw me first. His face went pale, the color draining so fast I could watch it happen. His mouth opened, closed. He knew. He knew exactly what I'd heard.
"Lucy—"
"You promised him."
The words came out steady. Steadier than I felt, steadier than I had any right to sound with my whole world crumbling around me.
Liam looked between us, something like pain flickering across his face. "I'll give you two a minute." He was gone before either of us could respond, slipping past me in the doorway, his hand brushing my shoulder in a gesture that might have been an apology.
"Lucy, please." Cal took a step toward me. "Let me explain."
"Explain what?" I heard my own voice like it belonged to someone else. "That you've been with me this whole time because Mateo asked you to? That everything between us started because you made a promise to a dying man?"
"It started that way, yes, but—"
"You moved into my building." The realization was still hitting me in waves, each one worse than the last. "Six months ago. You found out where I lived and you moved in across the hall. On purpose."
Cal's jaw tightened. "Yes."
"And you never told me."
"I didn't know how."
"You didn't know how." I laughed, and the sound was ugly, broken. "For six months, you watched me. Listened to me cry through the walls. Passed me in the hallway and pretended we were strangers. And the whole time, you were there because Mateo asked you to take care of me."
"Lucy—"
"Was any of it real?" The question tore out of me before I could stop it.
"The night I knocked on your door. The way you've been with Gabrielle.
The almost—" I couldn't say it. Couldn't name what had almost happened in my kitchen.
"Was any of it because you wanted to be there?
Or was it all just you keeping your word? "
"It was real." Cal's voice cracked. "All of it was real. Lucy, I swear to you."
"How am I supposed to believe that?" I stepped back when he reached for me. "How am I supposed to know what's real and what's just you keeping your word?"
"Because I'm telling you." His voice was raw. "I'm standing here telling you the truth."
"The truth is that you lied to me for months!" I shook my head. "You let me think you chose this. Chose me. But you didn't. Mateo chose for you."
"That's not—"
"I'm not finished." The words came out sharper than I intended, but I couldn't stop them.
"Every time you showed up, every time you helped with Gabrielle, every time you looked at me like—" I stopped and swallowed.
"I thought it meant something. I thought it was real.
And now I find out it started because a dying man asked you to watch over me. "
"It started that way. But Lucy, it became—"
"I don't know what it became. And apparently, neither do you."
The words landed, and I watched as they hit him. I saw the fight drain out of his face, leaving behind a weary, hollowed-out expression I’d never seen before. For the first time, the walls weren't just cracking, they were gone.
"I'm here because I love you."
The words hung there, waiting for me to do something with them. I thought he was going to stop and say anything else, but he didn't and his next words cut me like a sharp knife.
"I love you, Lucy. Not because of Mateo.
Not because of the promise. Because of you.
" He took a step toward me, and I held my ground this time, too tired to retreat.
"Because of the way you sing to Gabrielle at 2 AM when you think no one's listening.
Because of how hard you fight for the people you love.
Because being with you is the first time in three years I've felt like myself again. "
I wanted to believe him. Every part of me ached to close the distance between us, to let him hold me, to pretend I'd never heard that conversation in the hallway.
But I couldn't unhear what I had already heard.
"You should have told me." My voice came out quieter now, the anger fading into something worse. Something that felt like grief. "From the beginning. You should have told me about the promise, about why you moved into my building, about all of it. And you didn't."
"I know."
"Why?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, the words sounded like they cost him everything.
"Because I was afraid. Afraid you'd look at me exactly the way you're looking at me right now."
The honesty of it cut deeper than anything else he'd said.
"I can't do this." I wrapped my arms around myself, holding the pieces together. "I can't stand here and try to figure out what's real and what's obligation. I can't look at you without wondering if you'd even be here if Mateo hadn't asked."
"I would. Lucy, I swear—"
"I have to go," I decided. "I need time. I need to think. And I can't do that here, looking at you."
I walked away before he could say anything else. Before I could change my mind. Before the part of me that still wanted him could win out over the part that felt shattered.
Owen was in the bay, Gabrielle still cradled against his chest. He took one look at my face and didn't ask questions—just handed her over, his eyes full of something I couldn't bear to see. Pity, maybe. Or understanding. I didn't know which was worse.
I strapped Gabrielle into her carrier with shaking hands, not looking at anyone, feeling the weight of the whole crew's eyes on my back as I pushed through the bay doors and into the parking lot.
I called Joanna from the car.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone. Gabrielle was crying in the back seat, picking up on my distress; my own tears in the front seat fueled the panic, and her wails filled the small space until I could hardly think.
"Lucy?" Joanna's voice, warm and worried. "Honey, what's wrong?"
"Can I stay with you?" The words came out broken, barely intelligible. "Please. I need—I can't go home. Can I stay with you?"
"Of course you can. Of course. Come right now. I'll put the kettle on."
She didn't ask why. Didn't ask what had happened, who had hurt me, or why I was crying so hard. She just said yes, the way she always did, the way my mother would have.
I drove to her house on autopilot. Pulled into her driveway. Sat there for a long moment, staring at nothing. My mind was running fast through the words I'd heard, trying to make sense of the wreckage.
Cal didn't follow me. Maybe he just wanted to give me space.
I watched the rearview mirror the whole way, half expecting to see his truck behind me, hoping for it, half needing time to think. But the road stayed empty. I felt abandoned, realizing that he had truly let me go.
That was the answer, wasn't it? If he really loved me, he would have followed. He would have fought. He would have done something other than stand there and let me walk away.
But he didn't. Because I was right. Because some part of him knew I was right.
I was just a promise he'd been trying to keep. And promises weren't the same as love.
Joanna opened her door and pulled me inside, took the baby from my arms, and held me while I fell apart.
Because that's what mothers do. And mine was gone, and so was the man I thought I was falling for.
Turns out, you can lose someone without them dying. You just have to learn that they were never really yours.