Page 80 of Wreckage and Rain

Summer opens her eyes. She's facing the stage, not the back. She doesn't see me.

She smiles at Sam and says something that makes him laugh. They move to the bar together. Her hand on his arm. Casual. Certain. The certainty of repetition.

She looks at home. She looks like she belongs here, in this club, in this city, in this life she built from nothing. And the man beside her looks like he belongs next to her. He didn't take that place or earn it. She chose him. Freely.

"Let's go," Dom says.

I don't want to go. I want to stand here and watch her forever. Not out of possession. Out of awe. She did this. She lost everything and she drove fourteen hours and she found a city and a club and a man and a life and she did this. Without me. Without the Bennet name. Without anyone's permission.

That's who Summer King is.

And I almost made her forget it.

"Let's go."

I follow him out. The night air is cold. Sharp. Nothing like Charleston.

In the car, I sit in the passenger seat and don't speak for a long time.

"She's happy."

"She is."

"That's good." My voice breaks. I let it. "That's what I wanted for her."

"Is it?"

"Yes." I mean it. I hate it. But I mean it. "I just wanted to be the reason."

"Then earn it. Don't demand it. Don't take it. Earn it."

"How?"

"Stay in Chicago. Don't ambush her. Find a way to tell her the truth without making it about your redemption. Make it about her right to know. And then do the work. Visibly. Consistently. Without guarantees."

"And if she doesn't come back?"

"Then she doesn't. And you live with that. Because the alternative, forcing yourself into her life, making her healingabout your comfort, that's the same thing your father did. Treating her like an object to be acquired instead of a person to be earned."

I sit with that.

"I'm staying in Chicago."

"Figured." Dom leans back. His face softens into something I'm not used to seeing on him. Something dreamy and slightly concussed. "That dancer. The second one. The small one."

"You're in love."

"I'm in something. I don't have a word for it yet."

"The word is fucked, Dom."

"Yeah." He stares at the ceiling of the car. "That sounds about right."

Despite everything. Despite the agony and the jealousy and the image of Summer folded back into another man's body like she belonged there, burned into my brain.

I almost smile.

Chapter 22: The Other Man