He just stood there.
Quiet.
Steady.
The same steady he'd been when I told him about my mama.
When I told him about Wyatt in the shower.
When he looked at me from the arena dirt after his eyes first reopened.
The same steady he was every damn time he looked at me, like I was a thing he'd decided on a long time ago and had no plans to revisit.
My hand stayed on the door frame.
"When shit gets hard, I'm the first to crack a joke," he finally said. "To laugh."
His voice was rough. Tired. A voice with a fresh concussion in it.
"Because showin' your hand means somebody gets to look at it."
He paused and swallowed.
"Figured out somethin' the last few weeks, though. Hidin' behind a grin works fine when a person just needs easy. But you don't need easy, Calvin. You need somebody who won't flinch. And I've spent my whole goddamn life practicin' not flinchin'—just never knew that was the part worth showin'."
I caught the shift and the wince in my periphery. His eyes didn't leave me, even if mine weren't on him.
"So I ain't laughin' now. I'm fuckin' scared. Scared you're gonna drive on outta here and never look back. But if you gotta go, go. I ain't gonna try and make that choice for you."
My lips parted on a deep inhale.
"But you oughta know." From the edge of my vision, I saw him step forward once. Then stop. "I want you here, with me. Every damn day. 'Cause I love the hell outta you."
The duffel hit the gravel.
I didn't decide to drop it.
My shoulder just… relaxed.
Like a weight I hadn't realized I'd been carrying for decades simply vanished.
Because the last person who loved me died.
And Brody Lancaster was still standing.
CHAPTERFORTY-NINE
The loudest silenceof my life started when her beat-to-hell duffel bag hit the gravel.
I'd had pained silences before. Sittin' next to my dad's hospital bed in those last weeks when there wasn't a damn thing left to do or say. The moment after I told Sassy I couldn't marry her and she looked at me like I had three heads. The two-beat nothin' after Calvin told me about Wyatt, when I was standin' behind her in the shower and had to decide what kinda man I was gonna be.
None of 'em came close.
The driveway was quiet as a graveyard. Even the cicadas had the good sense to keep their mouths shut. Somewhere behind me I was aware of my mama and Rhett not movin', not breathin', like two people tryin' not to exist in the periphery of somethin' they knew wasn't theirs.
Calvin didn't turn.
She just stood there, one hand still on the frame of the open driver's door, starin' into the cab of her own truck like maybe if she looked long enough, the response she was lookin' for was gonna climb up outta the steering wheel.
