Chapter 3 – Davis
CHAPTER THREE
DAVIS
Cole and Mira tried their hardest to distract her with raspberry tarts and almost impossible to believe stories about the Makers—Cole and Madigan’s ’90s grunge band—and far too many cups of espresso. It had almost worked too. But when Davis pulled into the Bluebird parking lot while afternoon started its lazy orange shift into evening, when she saw Madigan’s truck back in its usual spot, an earthquake big enough to reduce the mountain to rubble wouldn’t have distracted her from the sharp ache in her chest, the pain making it hard to breathe.
He was here. Kev was here. Probably in his cabin. Probably unpacking. So close she could feel him. Tiny vibrations under her skin, a hand cupping her cheek, fingers curling around her neck.
“Fuck,” she whispered, dropping her forehead to rest against her steering wheel. Her mouth was dry, her hands trembling, her pulse pounding in her throat. She should just go to his cabin. Get it over with. She should go knock on his door and say Hi. Welcome back. I’m glad you’re safe. I’m glad you’re doing well. And then leave. And it would be done.
She wouldn’t call it closure, because they’d have to actually talk about what happened for it to be closure. And that would never happen. But at least it would be done. At least she could take the final step away from him and move on to whatever came next.
Her keys shook in her fingers when she slid them out of the ignition. Her knees buckled when she stepped out of her car. Her vision swam when she tried to stand, static threatening the edges, the worst head rush she’d ever had in her life nearly knocking her over. It was all too much.
Not today , she told herself, cowardly relief rushing through her with every slowed beat of her heart. Not today.
It was late, anyway. He’d be tired. And she’d had enough caffeine in the last few hours to incapacitate a horse. Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow she’d find him, let him see her. Let him see that she wasn’t broken. She wasn’t damaged because he’d left. Because he’d chosen drugs instead of her. Because he’d chosen someone else. She wasn’t hurt that he hadn’t sent her a single letter from rehab. It wasn’t like she’d sent him anything either, not one of the hundreds of notes she’d written him, crammed inside the shoebox in her closet. She’d acknowledge that he was here to recover. She’d let him know that she was here to work and train and live her life. And it would be done.
Taking the steps to the lodge one at a time, she grasped the railing, not trusting her legs, weak and wobbly like she’d just ridden every one of the fifty miles she’d been training for. Adrenaline, cortisol, vasodilation. Normal biochemical reactions to stress. You are fine. You will be fine.
Once she reached the top step, she listened for voices, footsteps, anything. The only sounds were the muted whir of the ice maker in the kitchen, the ticking of her grandfather’s clock. The dining hall was empty. She was safe. Thank god.
She rolled her shoulders and started walking. It was going to be okay. It was all going to be fine. She could hide in her room for a while before dinner, pull herself together, get her head on?—
“Davis? ”
Her heart stopped mid-beat, her lungs seizing. But she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t.
“Davis,” he said again, and despite the softness of it, his voice was a tidal wave crashing over her head, sweeping her feet out from under her. Or maybe it was quicksand, gripping, pulling, depthless. Because she couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
He was here. He was here . Right behind her. Back in the dining hall, back in her world. Back, like he’d never left. She’d wondered how it would feel, hearing his voice again, feeling his presence. Her hands fisted at the familiarity of it, because even now, even after everything, they ached to touch him, to feel him.
“Davis, please.”
Please?
The temperature shifted, climbing as anger, hot and sudden and welcome, lit her up, melting her from her frozen spot in the middle of the room.
Did he just say please ? Did that just happen? How had he treated every please she’d ever said to him? What had she gotten back when she’d said please talk to me ? Please look at me ? When she’d begged him, pleaded with him? Desperate to stay by his side when he’d so obviously already left hers?
Do not look at his eyes, she warned herself as she turned around. They’ll be too beautiful, deep blue, deep as the ocean. Do not look at his lips, so soft, so pink against his clean shave. Do not look at his shoulders or his chest, fuller now, bigger. Do not look at his shirt, because you know that one. You’ve felt it under your fingertips, your palms, grasped it in your fists. Do not look.
“Hello, Kev,” she heard herself say, her gaze glued to some safe spot on the floor. “Welcome back.”
Slowly, he rose from his chair, the dull rasp of metal legs sliding against carpet as foreboding as a snake in the grass.
She closed her eyes.
“Can you look at me?” he asked, barely more than a whisper.
Do not look. Do not look. Please don’t look. But it was futile. Because when it came to him, when it came to Kevin Lowes, she was so weak.
Raising her eyes, she struggled not to stumble back a step, braced herself to keep the wounded gasp from flying out of her lungs. It had been so long since she’d seen him, since she’d seen this version of him, she’d almost forgotten it had existed.
She’d expected to see the Kev who’d gone silent, the one who’d pulled away so hard she still felt the ripples of his absence spreading out around her. She’d expected to see the Kev who’d vanished right in front of her eyes. The Kev who was pale and skinny and so distant he might as well have been a cardboard cutout. But there was color in this Kev’s cheeks, clarity in his eyes, steadiness in his gaze. This Kev had rewound time.
She’d met this Kev eight months ago. When she’d looked down at him through the window in her mom’s office. When he’d smiled up at her, standing in the snow with Madigan. Even though she’d just returned to Red Falls as a flailing and mildly depressed grad school dropout, she’d smiled at him, a smile that had spread like wildfire from her lips to her chest to her fingers and toes. Because in that moment, she’d known, known it deep in her belly, that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Looking at him now, she had no idea where that place was anymore.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
Her mouth dropped open. Because he didn’t get to miss her. He definitely didn’t get to tell her that he missed her. Who the hell did he think he was?
His brows slid together. “I mean,” he said, reading the barely contained anger in her expression, backpedaling away from it. “You look good.”
She didn’t, she knew. Not like he did. Standing in front of her, tall and golden, with sun-kissed skin and new muscles filling out his shirt, he looked good. Aside from the fingernails he’d started biting before he’d left—a habit rehab apparently hadn’t broken him of—he looked healthy. He looked vibrant.
Why did he get to look vibrant? Why did he get to be healthy and golden while every day she fought tooth and nail to keep one step ahead of the shadows lurking constantly behind her? The shadows of him, of what they were, of what she’d thought they were, always nipping at her heels, grasping at her ankles.
“Davis,” he said. “I’m so?—”
“I’m glad you’re doing well,” she cut across him, backing away when he tried to take a step toward her. He couldn’t apologize. Not here. Not now, with the glowing orange sunlight slanting in through the windows. Not with her grandpa’s clock over the door ticking and the ice maker humming and all the other normal and mundane things that insisted on continuing to exist like nothing had changed. He couldn’t. It would break her, and he’d already broken her once. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
His mouth opened, then it slowly closed, whatever he was about to say remaining caught between his lips. Caught in the resigned expression that threatened to core her out, in his round eyes and sinking shoulders. In the realization that she was not okay. That they were not okay.
“Oh, um. Thank you,” he said. And when he raised his hand an inch from his side, an inch toward her, before lowering it again, a tear slipped down her cheek.
“Shit,” she said to no one, maybe to everyone, to the entire universe, as she swiped furiously at her cheek, wiping it dry.
The sound he made might have been a groan. It might have been a whimper. It might have been something she’d replay in her mind on an endless loop for the rest of her life.
“Oh. Davis.” Madigan’s voice from across the room jolted her, like hands appearing out of thin air to clap in front of her face. “You’re home.”
She swore again, turning away, hating that Madigan would see her like this .
“Hey, Boss,” Kev said with a wooden brightness as he stepped around her, blocking her from Madigan’s view while she dried her eyes one last time. “Took you long enough.”
“Are you two?—”
“We’re fine,” Davis said, clearing the tremor from her voice, noticing the paperwork in one of Madigan’s hands, the pen in the other, the concern etched deeply between his eyes. “I was just welcoming Kev back. I’ll get out of your way.”
She took a step, but not quickly enough to miss the way Kev’s fingers twitched, flexing at his side like he might reach for her again. So she walked faster, nodding at Madigan on her way out of the dining hall, bumping numbly into the walls, stumbling down the stairs. It wasn’t until she was safely behind her closed bedroom door that the brunt force of seeing him again hit her in the chest, taking her to her knees.
The real tears came then, so fast and demanding she could only let them flow. But this would be the last time she’d cry over him. The hard part was over, and she’d survived it. She was still breathing. Still here.
When Murphy scratched on her door, she opened it, accepting the comfort of her dog, curling up next to his big, furry body on her bed and letting her tears fall into his scruff.