My grandpa opened the door as I walked up the steps and wished me goodnight as he headed for his car. Whatever awaited me tomorrow, at least I was home for the night.
Chapter 2
Hunter
Ishould have left when she told me she didn’t want to deal with the light. I should have gone home like a normal person, fed my cat, and watched some crap on TV. But instead, I stood in the middle of her bar like I’d stepped into the future I was supposed to have.
She looked tired. Beautiful, but tired. She always looked like that lately, like she was holding her whole life up with one hand and flipping the bird with the other. That was always my favorite thing about her. The attitude that wouldn’t quit. Paige could make me laugh like no one else.
Back at home, my cat greeted me by jumping onto the counter and knocking over a cup, meowing at me as if I’d been gone for years, rather than just an hour or so.
“What have you been up to, Ozzy, you little menace?” I scratched behind his ears, smiling when he leaned in and started purring.
My townhouse looked cozy and homey, but in a way where everything was in its place, and nothing quite felt like it was lived in. The walls were a soft slate blue, and the floors were worn wood that creaked with each step. My favorite leather armchair sat beside the fireplace I never used, with a stack of books I kept meaning to read piled on the end table. In the kitchen, under-cabinet lights glowed against the tiled backsplash, creating an illusion of warmth. I filled the space with soft rugs, framed photos of my family, and mugs I’d collected over the years. It looked like a home. But most nights, it felt like a waiting room for something that had never arrived.
I dumped food into Ozzy’s bowl, made a cup of tea, and then checked my phone.
The Cassidy sibling group chat had gone hard today. There were six of us. My baby sister, Charlotte, had shared too many old man birthday memes to count. Deacon had posted gym selfies, Tucker had shared pictures of his kids sleeping under the table at his ex-wife’s house, Spencer shared pics of his new place—he’d just moved in with his girlfriend, and Brody had started a list for my birthday barbecue—looked like steaks were on the menu. I stared at it for a long time. I should be looking forward to my birthday, but I wasn’t.
Tomorrow, I’d be forty.
I hadn’t told anyone about the pact. Paige remembered, of course. She remembered everything.
We were seventeen when she said it. I was driving her home from prom after she’d had a fight with Eli and ditched him in a rage. On her way out, she stole a tray of cupcakes from the hotel ballroom. We pulled over and parked at the makeout spot along the Sweetbriar River. She climbed into the bed of my truck, hair still curled, tiara crooked. We looked at the stars and made the pact, toasting with cupcakes to seal the deal.
She’d said it offhand, like a joke.
But somehow, it had felt more like a promise. Even so, I shoved it to the back of my mind and kept it there for years.
I headed out to my back steps, Ozzy curled up beside me as I sat down and thought about what I should have said tonight. I had fought the urge to tell her she was beautiful. That I admired how she’d raised three kids, spent her time building her business, all the while holding herself together through a divorce that would have flattened most people.
Instead, I’d joked about the pact and asked her to dinner.
Because that’s what I did. Hid the truth behind a smirk. Fixed what I could and left the rest. That’s probably why I’m still single.
I leaned back against the railing, looked up at the stars, and let the cool night sink into my skin as I checked my texts. My father had sent me photos of the restoration job he was working on, a ’67 Camaro he’d found in pieces and was determined to bring back to life. I texted back that we’d get started on it soon. He was an insomniac like me, so I wasn’t worried about waking him up.
My family owned Cassidy’s Automotive. It had been a fixture in the area since my grandfather had opened it up decades ago. My brothers and I worked with our father on rebuilds and repairs for cars, trucks, motorcycles—basically, if it had an engine and wheels, we could fix it. We all had our specialties. My favorite work is rebuilds; I liked taking broken things and making them into something better.
I set the phone down, smiling when Ozzy climbed into my lap like a little brown furnace and purred, headbutting my arm. He was a cranky rescue with half a tail and a judgmental stare. I’d found him wandering along the trail behind my townhouse when I was out for a jog. He had no chip, no owner, no one but me. So I kept him.
I thought about Paige again, how she had looked at me tonight after I’d asked her to dinner. She’d been annoyed with me, I could tell. She was also flustered and curious, like she couldn’t decide whether I was a problem or a solution.
She had called me safe once. I overheard her tell her sister, Piper, that I was the only man in her life besides her grandpa and her son who hadn’t given her a reason to cry or yell or run screaming like a banshee into the night.
She didn’t know I’d heard her. Or that I had memorized her words and kept them close to my heart. I walked back inside, closed the sliding door, and stood in my kitchen like a man trying to decide if he was having a midlife crisis or developing feelings for his best friend. Ozzy ran off down the hall, expecting me to go to bed.
I flicked off the kitchen light, and the room sank into a gentle silence. Ozzy meowed his protest from the hall, but even he seemed to respect the stillness that settled in when I allowed myself to think too much. The truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. Not really.
I used to imagine my life was mapped out—organized, predictable, safe—but somewhere between learning to repair broken things and loving people who didn’t always stay, I lost the script. Maybe that’s why the idea of Paige, with her sharp tongue and stubborn hope, felt like both a threat and an irresistible temptation.
I wandered to the window, absently tracing the pane of glass, listening to the distant sound of the wind outside. The urge to call her, to hear her voice and ask if she was awake too, tugged at me. But I didn’t. I knew better than to turn this restless loneliness I was drowning in into a confession or whatever it was that I was feeling.
Instead, I rinsed out my mug, turned off the faucet, and tried to focus on something else—cars, work, my family, Ozzy.
There was a time when I thought I would marry someone soft. Someone gentle who wanted a white picket fence and Sunday dinners. Someone who would bake cookies and hum while we folded the laundry together, someone who reminded me of my mom and the way my family had been before she died. I’d dated a few, well, more than a few women like that over the years. But none of them had ever made me feel like Paige did when she cursed out her appliances.
She’d been on my mind more and more since her divorce. It was confusing. No, it was maddening. No, she needed help, and her asshole husband was out of the picture, so I stepped up. She was my friend. The best friend I’d ever had, and I was not about to screw it up by confusing my care for her with feelings that were most likely based on the fact that I hadn’t had a date in over a year.
