“The hallway smells like old smoke and poor choices,” Ryan said.
“You lived with three foster families and once slept in your truck for two years,” I told him. “I don’t need housing criticism from you.”
Ryan pointed at me. “That’s why I know hard times when I see them.”
Cade didn’t smile. “Hockey House is paid for. Moving back would free up the money you spend on rent, let you send more home, and help you cut your hours at North Cut. The house has space. Your room is still empty.”
“It’s not empty.”
Nobody spoke for a second.
I looked at the water glass, at my hand beside it, and at the condensation running down onto the bar. “It has too much in it.”
Briggs’s face changed. “Because of her?”
I hated that he asked it like that. Gently. Like the answer could break if it hit the floor too hard.
I leaned my elbows on the bar and looked down. “I couldn’t sleep there after.”
No one made a joke.
I swallowed and kept going because stopping would make them treat it like something fragile. “Everything was her. The stairs, the kitchen, the porch, my room, the stupid candle she pretended to hate and lit every time she came over, my sheets, and the hallway outside my door. I’d close my eyes and hear her laughing downstairs, or wake up thinking she was there, and then she wasn’t. I felt like a fucking idiot for missing someone who made it clear I wasn’t enough.”
Briggs looked down at his hands, and Rider’s coaster started moving again, slower this time.
Cade’s voice was careful. “She didn’t say you weren’t enough.”
I looked up at him. “It felt the same.”
Ryan nodded once, like that much he understood. “Feelings don’t care about transcripts.”
“Exactly,” Briggs said. “Which is why I’m on your side.”
Rider shot him a look. “This is not a trial.”
“It feels trial-adjacent.”
“It feels like two people in pain making it everyone else’s problem,” Ryan said.
Cade gave a short laugh without much humor. “That part tracks.”
I pushed the water glass away. “So, what do I do? Go apologize and pretend I don’t still want to wring Gage’s neck every time he looks at her?”
Ryan lifted a shoulder. “You can apologize and still hate Gage’s face.”
“That’s healthy,” Rider said.
“No, that’s honest.”
Briggs pointed at Ryan again. “See, this is why I like your advice. It allows anger.”
Ryan looked at me. “You apologize for stepping on something you didn’t know. You stop making comments about her rules, her patterns, or who she talks to unless you want every woman in her life to skin you and hang your jersey in the parking lot. Then you decide if you’re actually done with her or just punishing her because you’re not.”
The words sat there.
I didn’t answer, so Cade did it for me. “He’s not done.”
I shot him a look. “Trust me, if I could stop loving her, I would. I would claw her out from under my fucking skin if I thought it would stop.”
