Chapter 2 #3
Rachel reappears at my side, winded with eyes wide. We got separated in the chaos and Heath removed me from the center of it all. “Where the hell did that come from? Should I call Nate?”
“Don’t call Nate,” Heath and I say at the same time, both of us knowing who started that fight. It turns out, even after nearly a decade, I’m still finding ways to keep Jett Riggsby out of trouble.
Rachel’s eyes bounce between the two of us as she shoves her phone back into her purse. “Heath, don’t you have some girl to get back to?”
“What makes you think I’m not hitting on Drummond?”
“Ew,” I mutter at the same time Rachel shoots back, “Yeah, right. We both know Jett would kick your ass.”
And just like that, the name hits me like a sucker punch.
I don’t want to look for him. I don’t…
But I do.
Across the bar, another ghost from the past materializes at Jett’s side. Baker Holmes. He hasn’t changed much—still steady muscle, still part of the pack I once thought of as mine. He has a hand on Jett’s chest, murmuring something, but Jett’s energy thrums wildly, vibrating and barely leashed.
Our eyes catch. Ten years vanish in a heartbeat.
Anger and something else—something molten—collide in his gaze. And I swear I feel it, a live wire running from him to me, snapping every nerve awake. My breath hitches, chest too tight to contain the war raging inside me.
Grief. Rage. Longing.
I hate him, but God help me, there’s a part of me that still wants him.
The boy who destroyed my heart. The man who still owns every broken shard.
He’s bigger now. His jawline is sharp enough to cut glass. Muscles roping under sun-tanned skin. Intense blue eyes locked on me as if he can see straight through.
“You okay, Wren?” Russ asks, breaking through my daze.
I drag my attention away from Jett, only to find his glare still burning through me.
“I’m fine,” I lie as my pulse hammers.
And then he's moving. Storming past, leather and mint swirling in his wake.
I breathe it in like a sin I can’t resist.
“I…” I start, hesitant about if I should follow my ghost from the past or stay with my brother’s girlfriend.
Rachel squeezes my forearm, tipping her head toward the door. “Go. I’ve got to get Corbin anyway.”
When I start to protest, she shakes her head. “Go confront your past, Wren.”
Heath says something, but I don’t hear him. I’m already moving. Purse clutched tight, heels clicking as I shove through the crowd, my eyes never leaving his back.
The bar’s back door slams against brick, rattling the frame as I stumble into the narrow alley.
The early evening air is cool and damp, carrying the earthy bite of tilled fields and the faint tang of cigarette smoke from the small cluster of butts ground into the pavement.
A single streetlamp flickers on at the far end, its glow soft and yellow, pooling against the cracked pavement where a couple of rusted trash cans lean together.
Ahead, Jett stalks toward the parking lot, boots crunching over gravel, broad shoulders rigid as if he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.
The sun dips low, spilling a wash of orange and rose across the horizon, catching on the line of his jaw, igniting the ink that coils over his forearm.
He looks bigger, harder—like the boy I loved was forged into steel.
“Are you really going to make me chase you in four-inch heels?” I call out, my voice sharper than I intend.
He freezes, shoulders stiffening. But he doesn’t turn.
My pulse thrums in my throat. I don’t know why I’m following him. To thank him? To scream at him? To claw at every scar he left in me? Or to prove he’s real and not the ghost that’s haunted me every night for nearly ten years.
Hell if I know.
I catch up, heart pounding, ankles wobbling on the pavement. “Jett.”
He pivots slowly, like he’s giving himself time to build the wall I used to know how to climb. His gaze meets mine, baby blues darkened by years and shadows, and I swear my body remembers him before my mind can catch up. The charge between us is instant, vicious, alive.
“I don’t need you defending me,” I snap, even though my voice cracks. “I’m not yours to protect.”
That makes him huff a humorless laugh. “Could’ve fooled me, Wren. Looked like you needed saving when that asshole had his hands on you.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “I had it handled.”
“Right,” he grits out, stepping closer, his chest rising and falling harshly beneath a fitted gray tee.
Up close, I drink him in, even though I shouldn’t. His body is all hard edges, carved from years of war and work. His jaw lined with intentional scruff, his shoulders impossibly wider. The scar—my scar—still slashes his lip, a reminder of who we once were.
My breath stutters, and I hope he doesn’t notice.
“Handled it so well, you threw a drink instead of a punch. That’s not the Wren I knew.”
“That Wren’s gone,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His jaw tics, and I see it—hurt buried beneath fury. The same hurt that mirrors my own.
“Yeah,” he rasps, roughened like gravel, eyes raking over me. I don’t miss the subtle way his lips twitch when his gaze lands on the necklace I still wear. “She sure as hell is.”
The words slice, sharper than any slap, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The air between us crackles, charged with things unsaid, with everything we once were and everything we can’t be again.
But God help me, I want to touch him. To hate him and need him in the same breath.
Instead, I lift my chin, armor back in place. “I’m home now…”
“For now,” he mumbles, interrupting me.
“For good,” I snap.
“We’ll see about that.”
I swallow roughly. “You stay in your lane, and I’ll stay in mine.”
His eyes flare in the dim light. “Fine by me.”
But the way he looks at me like he’s fighting himself tells me it’s anything but fine.
Maybe coming back to Silo Bay was a mistake.