Page 31 of Trade It All

The truck moves through the city, lights cutting across the windshield in long streaks, the rhythm of it steady in a way that should settle something in me and doesn’t. The silence inside the cab isn’t empty. It’s full. Heavy with everything that isn’t being said, everything I’m holding in because the second it gets out, it won’t stop where it should.

So I keep it contained. Keep my focus forward. Keep everything locked down where it can’t reach her. But I’m aware of her anyway. Every shift. Every breath. Every small movement she makes like her body is trying to settle and hasn’t figured out howyet. It pulls at something deeper than the anger. Something that doesn’t burn. Something that tightens.

She moves beside me, subtle but enough that it cuts through everything else. Her hand lifts slowly, hesitant, like she’s not sure she wants to feel it but can’t leave it alone. I catch it in the side mirror before I ever turn my head, the reflection just enough to show me her fingers moving toward her lip.

My thumb moves slowly over that point, controlled, grounding, something I can hold onto instead of everything else trying to break loose. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t come out wrong. So I keep it here. On the road. On her pulse under my hand. On the fact that she’s with me instead of there. We pull into the garage, the truck slowing before I cut the engine.

For a second, I don’t move. Then I let go of her wrist and step out, rounding the front and opening her door. I reach across her and unbutton her seat belt then I step back just enough to give her space while still staying close, still watching, still there if she needs something before she has to ask for it.

The building is quiet, removed from everything we just left behind, and that’s exactly what I need it to be. For her. I guide her inside without touching her this time, my hand hovering just behind her back, close enough if she needs it. The elevator doors slide open. And as they close behind us, carrying us up—I lock it down. All of it. Because by the time thosedoors open—she doesn’t see any of that. The elevator doors open, and I don’t hesitate. I guide her out, down the hall, through my door, the quiet of the penthouse closing around us the second it shuts behind us. It’s controlled here. Still. Nothing out of place. Nothing loud. Exactly what she needs.

She barely makes it three steps inside before she pulls away from me. “I need to shower.” The words come out quick, like they’ve been sitting there waiting for the second she felt safe enough to say them.

My body reacts before my mind catches up. Shower. The red sharpens instantly, snapping back into focus so fast it almost feels physical. My jaw tightens, something dark and violent rising right back to the surface, because my mind doesn’t go where it should. It goes somewhere worse. Did he—

“Maddie.” Her name comes out lower than I expect, rougher, pulled tight over everything I’m holding in.

She’s still talking. I can see her mouth moving, but the words don’t land at first. Not over the rush of everything hitting at once, not over the way my thoughts are already moving in a direction I don’t want them to go. Then she steps closer. Her hand presses flat against my chest. Grounding. Warm.

“Not because of that,” she says, softer now, her voice steady in a way that cuts through everything else. “I just… I never showered after we got off the plane. I went straight to Tyler’s.”

The red doesn’t disappear. But it shifts. Focuses. Narrows. Not on what might have happened. On what I know did. I nod once.

“Okay,” I say, my voice back where it belongs. Even. Controlled. “I’ve got you.”

I move before anything else can take hold again, heading straight for the bathroom, turning the shower on and adjusting the temperature without thinking about it. It’s muscle memory. Routine. Something I can do without letting anything slip. I step back out and head for the bedroom, pulling open a drawer without hesitation. I don’t have to think about what to grab. The same t-shirt. The same pair of shorts. The ones she wore the first night she stayed here. My hand stills for half a second before I set them on the bed.

My phone buzzes in my hand, dragging me out of it.

Luka.

Again.

And again.

I don’t need to read them to know what they say. I can hear it in his voice already, the way he was standing back there, the way he didn’t want to leave her.

Is she okay?

What happened?

Do I needto come back?

My thumb moves across the screen, quick, controlled, keeping it simple because anything more than that opens something I don’t have the room for right now.

She’s with me. She’s safe. No doc tonight. I’ll call if anything changes.

The message sends, and the three dots pop up almost immediately. I don’t wait. I don’t have anything else to give him right now that won’t bleed into something I’m barely holding in as it is. I slip my phone back into my pocket and step out into the hallway, stopping just outside the bedroom door.

I don’t crowd it. I don’t go in. But I don’t move away either. The water runs steady on the other side, filling the space in a way that keeps everything from going too quiet, keeps my head from drifting back to places it shouldn’t go. I lean my shoulder against the wall, arms crossing loosely over my chest, but there’s nothing relaxed about it. Everything in me is still locked down tight, everything that wanted to turn that truck around still sitting right where I forced it to stay.

It hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just waiting.

The water shuts off, and the quiet that follows lands differently than the silence before it.

It pulls my attention tighter, sharper, like everything in me shifts toward that door without me moving at all. I straighten slightly off the wall, my arms uncrossing, not because I’m aboutto go in, but because I’m already listening for something that tells me she’s still steady on her feet.

The door opens. And she steps out. Her hair is damp, darker at the ends where the water still clings to it, the t-shirt falling just past her hips, the shorts loose enough that they don’t catch anywhere they shouldn’t. My clothes. On her. It settles into my chest in a way I don’t touch too closely, something quiet and heavy that doesn’t match the rest of what’s been tearing through me tonight. She looks smaller like this. Not weak. Just… softer. Like the edges she holds up around everyone else haven’t come back into place yet.