My phone buzzes on the nightstand, and I know who it is before I look.
Mom.
A text, not a call, because Mom knows me well enough that if I’d wanted to talk, I would have called, and as late as it is, she isn’t going to push.
Mom:Just checking you arrived safely, darling. Call me tomorrow. Love you so much. x
I smile at the screen in the low light, and I type back.
Sophia:I’m here. I’m okay. The house is beautiful. Talk tomorrow. Love you. x
Watching the little delivered tick appear, I set the phone face down on the nightstand. She’ll see it in the morning. She has probably been checking her phone every twenty minutes since I landed and will sleep better now knowing that a message is waiting for her. That’s my mom. She never crowds you, but she’s always there, just close enough that you never have to wonder.
I know I’m lucky in that way. Luckier than I remember to be grateful most of the time.
Lying back on the bed, I let myself think about the evening. All of it, in order, from the beginning.
The dinner, dishes, the way I’d tried three wrong cupboards. That laugh in Tate’s kitchen at nearly ten o’clock was unguarded, and it surprised me. It was the first real laugh I’d had in longer than I can remember.
And the fire pit.
The stars above the desert.
The way Tate had sat in the night and said‘He talked about you all the time,’like it was simply the truth, and there was no particular reason not to say it.
‘She knows me. The real me. Not the patch.’
I press the back of my hand to my mouth and let myself cry properly, into the night, for the man who had said that and isn’t here to say it to my face. For the love we’d had that I hadn’t known was that irreplaceable kind until it was already gone. For every morning I’ve woken up since and reached for him in the half second before consciousness arrived and found nothing there.
I cry until there’s nothing left, and then I lie there in the stillness just breathing.
Ryan, I think.I miss you. I miss you every single day.
The night answers with silence.
Reaching over, I turn off the lamp.
In the dark, I watch the pool light move slowly across the ceiling. It’s pale blue and quiet until my eyes grow heavy, my thoughts begin to soften at the edges, and the evening finally lets me go.
Chapter Ten
SOPHIA
I wake up to sunlight.
Not the pale kind that creeps through my curtains in Vixen Falls. This is different. Bold, golden, and relentless, it floods the room from every angle like it has somewhere to be and isn’t interested in being subtle about it.
For a second, I forget where I am.
And then the desert comes into focus beyond the sliding doors, sand, rock, and endless blue sky, the mountains sitting still and ancient in the distance, and then it all comes back.
Vegas.
Tate’s house.
Last night.
Lying there for a moment, I blink at the ceiling and reach for my phone.
