The ache of it expands quietly inside me. Because I want it so badly. And there’s nowhere for that want to go.
“We could adopt.”
Typical Dane. The second he sees one door closing, he’s already looking for another way through.
Something tightens in my chest at how quickly he reaches for a solution. How badly he wants to fix this for me.
A small laugh slips out before I can stop it.
“Who’s going to give us a baby?”
He doesn’t answer. There isn’t one. We both know it.
“Let’s focus on getting out of here first. We’ll deal with the rest when the time comes.”
I know what he’s doing. Trying to pull us back from the edge of something neither of us can solve tonight.
And he’s not wrong. There’s nothing more to get from this conversation now.
“Okay,” I say.
He moves a piece on the board.
Small. Subtle. But it opens the board in a way that gives me an advantage I definitely didn’t earn.
I notice immediately and take it anyway.
We keep playing.
The pieces move. The game continues the way it’s supposed to. Dane’s focus stays steady and precise.
Mine keeps drifting somewhere else entirely.
Chapter 16
Dane Gallagher
Charlotte fallsasleep before I do. Within minutes of lying down, her breathing evens out.
That’s been happening more lately. As soon as the sun goes down, her body just… switches off.
She’s out cold, and I realize I didn’t make today’s mark on the tree.
Shit.
I keep track of the days on the tree at the edge of camp. Ryan started it—one cut for each day, a line through every week. Something to hold onto when everything else blurred together.
His marks were quick. Uneven. Just enough to count.
Mine aren’t.
Same height. Same depth. Clean. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about tracking time and started being about doing it right.
It was one of the things I took over when he died—one of a hundred small responsibilities that slowly became mine. And I missed today.
It shouldn’t matter as much as it does. But once something settles into my routine, once my brain decides it’s important, it’s hard to ignore when it’s off. Hard not to feel the imbalance of it sitting there.
I ease out from under Charlotte carefully, trying not to wake her. She shifts beside me, making a soft sound under her breath before settling again.
