She exhales once, then says it like she’s ripping off a bandage. “Grayson’s going to be there.”
Everything in me goes cold and hot at the same time.“No.” I sit up so fast the blanket slides to the floor. “Nope. Absolutely not. I’m not doing that. I’m not—no.”
“Carly—”
“I can’t,” I say, already shaking my head, already pushing up off the couch with an innate need to bolt for her bedroom and lock myself in there. “I can’t do this tonight. I can’t do this at all. He doesn’t get to just—just decide he’s ready to talk and have me show up like—like?—”
“Like someone who deserves to be heard?” Zoe cuts in.
I laugh, breathless and angry. “He already decided what he thinks. He made that very clear.”
“And now he wants to talk.”
“How do you know that?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I just do.”
My hands come up, the heels of my palms pressing against my temples. “Zoe, I will actually throw up on the walk.”
“I’ll bring a plastic bag.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She steps closer, softer now, but no less immovable. “You don’t have to forgive him. You don’t have to fix anything tonight. But you do have to go. Because if you don’t, you’re going to sit on this couch for another four weeks, rotting and wondering if talking to him would've saved things.”
I swallow, my heart thumping too hard against its cage.She’s not wrong. Ihatethat she’s not wrong.
“I look like shit,” I croak.
Zoe snorts. “Good. He doesn't deserve you at your best right now.”
* * *
The bell above the café door chimes when we walk in.
Grayson stands near the counter, Maddox to one side of him, Cole to the other. He looks exactly like himself and not at all like himself at the same time.
His shirt hugs him a little differently, but it's nice, clean, no marker stains or food from Pen, and he's at least wearing real pants, unlike my leggings.But there are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there before, a tightness in his jaw that doesn’t ease when he sees me, and something in his posture that feels… off.
We just stare at each other.
Everything in the room falls away. The hum of the fridge, the soft buzz of the lights, Zoe moving somewhere behind me — it all fades.
It’s just him,me, and four weeks of silence sitting between us.
He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping.I wonder if he notices the same thing about me.
“Okay,” Cole says into the charged quiet, clapping his hands once like a man who has absolutely had enough of both of us. “This is getting ridiculous.”
Neither of us looks away.
Cole points between us. “You two are being children about this.”
My eyebrows shoot up.Grayson exhales sharply. “Cole?—”
“You love each other,” Cole says flatly, and I have to resist the urge to flinch. “That’s not up for debate. What is up for debate is how long you’re both going to stand here acting like you’d rather be miserable than fix it.”
Maddox leans back against the counter, arms folded. “He’s not wrong.”
