Chapter 20
Declan
Declan spent the entire drive reminding himself what his mother said.
He wasn’t doing this to chase Riley. If anything, trying to force his way through whatever was happening would only prove every reason she had for pulling away in the first place.
Disappearing wasn’t the answer either. The whole point had been to show her he was still here.
So, he drove to the apartment with no speech prepared and no particular outcome in mind. He wasn’t here to convince her of anything; wasn’t here to corner her into a conversation she clearly wasn’t ready to have. He just needed her to know that if she looked behind her, he hadn’t vanished.
The hallway outside the apartment was quiet when he arrived. For a moment he stood there staring at the door, wondering whether this counted as respecting her space or completely ignoring it. Eventually he decided there was no useful answer to that question and knocked anyway.
The door opened a few seconds later. Dee looked mildly surprised to see him, although not nearly as surprised as she probably should have been.
“Hi there,” she said.
“Hey.” The word left him automatically, his attention already slipping past her shoulder into the apartment beyond. He wasn’t consciously looking for Riley, at least, that was the lie he told himself.
Dee followed the direction of his gaze and her expression softened immediately. “She’s not here.”
Declan nodded once. The answer wasn’t exactly unexpected, but hearing it still left a hollow feeling somewhere beneath his ribs. “Okay.”
But he couldn’t leave. He just stayed where he was, hands in his pockets, suddenly aware that he’d driven all this way without ever deciding what he was supposed to do once he got here.
“She won’t see you,” Dee said gently.
Declan let out a slow breath and glanced down the hallway before looking back at her. “Yeah, I figured.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt strangely familiar. He’d spent enough time around Riley to become accustomed to conversations that left room for people to think. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and shifted his weight.
“I’m sorry.”
Dee frowned. “For what?”
“For the other night.”
The words came out more quietly than he’d intended. “For Tyler. For all of it.”
“Decl—”
“I know I wasn’t the one saying it,” he said, cutting her off before she could dismiss it. “But you were there because of me. It was my family and my invitation.”
Something in Dee’s expression softened. “He was out of line.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean really out of line.”
Declan huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I gathered that.”
“And I threw wine on him.”
That pulled a genuine smile from him. “You definitely did.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Not my finest moment.”
“Depends who you ask.” For the first time since opening the door, Dee laughed. The sound eased some of the tension sitting in his chest, although not nearly enough.
Because Riley was still missing from the conversation, Riley was still the reason he was standing here. Dee seemed to recognise that too. Her expression settled as she looked at him properly.
“You care about her.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question. Declan didn’t answer it like one. “Yeah.”
There wasn’t much point pretending otherwise anymore. Dee studied him for a moment before nodding to herself. “Good. Because she’s not going to make this easy.”
A small smile pulled at his mouth despite himself. “Trust me, I’ve noticed.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
For a moment neither of them spoke, then Dee folded her arms and leaned slightly against the door-frame. “I know what she’s doing.”
The certainty in her voice immediately caught his attention. “Do you?”
“She’s scared.” The answer came so quickly it almost surprised him.
Dee sighed. “Riley spends her entire life analysing things before they happen. She plans for every possible outcome before she takes a step. If something doesn’t fit into the system she’s built for herself, her first instinct is usually to create distance until she can understand it. ”
Declan’s chest tightened.
“I’m not going to let her cut people off just because it’s easier than dealing with what she’s feeling,” Dee continued. “She’s done that before, it never makes anything better.” Her gaze held his. “And that includes you.”
Declan didn’t answer immediately. For the first time in weeks, the knot of uncertainty he’d been carrying loosened slightly, knowing that somebody else had looked at the situation and reached the same conclusion he had.
What happened between him and Riley had been real.
Whatever she was doing now wasn’t indifference, it was Riley trying to make sense of something she hadn’t expected.
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
Declan nodded and turned towards the stairs, heading down the hallway with the same deliberate calm he’d arrived with. This was what he’d do, show up. Dee would pass that along. He would leave the ball in her court.
“Hey, Declan.”
He stopped and looked back. Dee was still standing in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame.
“She’s happier when you’re around.”
The words caught him off guard, not because he hadn’t wanted them to be true, but because hearing them from someone else felt different. Dee gave a small shrug, like she was uncomfortable making a statement that personal.
“She’s still Riley, she still overthinks everything.” A faint smile tugged at Declan’s mouth despite himself. “But she talks more.”
The smile faded. Dee looked down the hallway briefly before meeting his gaze again.
“Most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but I do.
She talks about things that happen during her day now.
She’ll tell me something funny one of your clients said, or complain about something you did in training, or spend twenty minutes explaining why you were objectively incorrect about some completely insignificant topic. ”
That one drew a quiet laugh out of him. “And when something happens, you’re usually the first person she wants to tell.”
The laughter disappeared just as quickly. Declan hadn’t known that. Something must have shown on his face because Dee’s expression softened.
“She doesn’t let people in easily,” she said. “You know that better than most. Everything goes through about twelve layers of analysis before she trusts it enough to keep it.” His chest tightened slightly. “That’s why this whole thing has been so frustrating to watch.”
Declan frowned. “What do you mean?”
Dee let out a breath through her nose. “I mean she’s spent months getting closer to you, and now she’s trying to convince herself that walking away is somehow the sensible option.”
There was no anger in her voice, she just sounded tired. “Riley’s brilliant, but when she’s scared, she has a habit of treating distance like it’s the same thing as safety.”
The words settled heavily between them. Because that was it, wasn’t it? She let fear dictate her logic, dressed up as a decision. Dee folded her arms loosely and looked at him for a long moment.
“Don’t mistake this for her not caring.”
Declan looked down briefly before letting out a slow breath. When he looked back up, Dee was still watching him.
“She’s worth being patient with,” she said quietly.
Declan nodded. The answer came easily because he’d already made the decision before he’d left the house. “I know.”
For the first time that evening, Dee looked genuinely relieved. “Good.”
Declan gave her a small smile before turning back towards the stairs.
This time, when he walked away, the uncertainty he’d arrived with felt a little less sharp.
Nothing had been solved. Riley was still gone, he still had no idea when she might call, or if she would.
But somewhere between knocking on her door and standing in this hallway, he’d stopped wondering whether what they’d had was real.
It had been. Now he just had to give her enough time to remember that, too.