Page 54 of The Route to You

And that’s a good thing.

For now, though, she could use dinner with kind people who didn’t make love feel like a debt.

And maybe a drink.

15

KYLE

Kyle: Sloan called Evan, btw.

Davy: Thank the stars for that.

Davy: Maybe we can all just go back to our normal lives now.

Kyle looked up from his phone, hiding a smirk, then tucked it back into his pocket as he scanned the game board and leaned back against the couch. Not his turn, yet.

Across the coffee table, Dean strummed a guitar as Francesca leaned against his arm, eyes half-closed and content, a bag of gummy edibles open between them like it was a part of their normal Saturday night.

He’d been surprised to see Sloan reach for a couple, given how hesitant she’d been about drinking. Maybe she wanted to fit in.

Or maybe she’d needed something—anything—after the last twenty-four hours.

He couldn’t blame her.

Hell, the beers he’d drunk had done a decent job of loosening the knot that had almost choked him when she’d told him about the pills and the hospital. About how close she’d come to disappearing.

His shoulders tensed.

How?

How could that beautiful woman sitting beside him—smiling now, eyes softer—have ever believed the world would be better off without her?

Been so alone?

He’d always assumed after her dad’s company took off, Sloan had gone on to some glossy life, the kind strangers envied from a distance and decided was easy.

And would she ever get that low again?

What if I hadn’t been there last night when she felt alone?

The thought landed too heavily. Almost instinctively, his fingers twitched, wanting to reach for her and touch her. Steady himself on the warmth of her, solid and real. To remind himself that she was here. Still breathing. That she was okay.

When Sloan had broken up with him all those years ago, he’d gone home for the weekend. Liddy was away at school and Elle was in London, so he’d talked to Granny instead.

“Listen, buddy boy,” she said, eyes glinting with a ferocity typical of Granny. “Do I think you loved her? Yes. And don’t let anyone tell you young love isn’t real. It is. And it breaks your heart just as badly as us old, shriveled prunes who somehow think we feel more than you kids. But that girl just lost her momma. She’s not ready to love anyone—she barely loves herself right now. This isn’t about you. Let her go. She doesn’t need someone to help her numb the pain. She needs someone who allows her to live and grow and find her way back to the sun.”

His gaze focused on Dean’s fingers on the strings, the metallic twang filling the room with something that felt like both comfort and ache, sliding right into the soft spot behind Kyle’s ribs—the one that had been bruised for a month now, ever since the Mojave call.

Had Granny been wrong?

Should he have fought for Sloan? Stayed anyway? Tried to be there even when Sloan pushed him away?

Had he abandoned her when she needed him the most?

He’d let her go.

But had she ever found her way back to the sun the way Granny had said she would? She didn’t look like someone who’d been living in the light for a long time.