Page 75 of The Route to You

But . . . nothing.

Had he not saved my number after I called on the eve of my wedding?

So, she’d waited, trying to be patient, trying to respect the silence. Maybe he didn’t want to talk. Maybe he didn’t want to be part of the spectacle that had been her life. That was fair.

Finally, after a couple of weeks of contentious exchanges with Evan, she’d changed her number and decided to send Kyle a text with her new one and an apology. Nothing huge, just a cracked door.

His silence had been deafening.

And that, of course, had sent Sloan into a spiral. Of watching his YouTube channel. Sleeping in his shirt, which she’d kept like a brokenhearted college student after an unexpected breakup. Anger, sadness, then anger again.

Then she’d decided she needed to reach out. Call his family, at the very least, and let them know she was in possession of Granny Winnick’s ashes. Maybe she’d even hoped that would force Kyle to talk to her.

But, as it turned out, the Winnicks were difficult to get in touch with. Kyle’s parents had moved, and their address was private. Because of Elle’s fame and both Elle and Liddy being married to wealthy men, no one in the family had a number that was accessible.

The blare of a honking car ripped her from her thoughts, and she startled, her gaze settling on the city street.

Cable car bells clanged in the distance, and the air smelled faintly of coffee and sourdough from a bakery as she passed it.

Sloan walked beside Cheyenne in silence, still unable to find any of the words she wanted, her eyes drifting over brightly painted Victorians peeking between newer glass-fronted buildings, all of it charming in that slightly chaotic, too-pretty-to-be-real way.

She’d tried to love it here. And in pieces, she had.

But the hills still made her calves ache, the crowds felt like static under her skin, and the city had a way of reminding her—at every crosswalk, every café window—that this was a place she’d passed through, not one she’d chosen.

A breeze off the bay cut through her jacket, cool and salty, lifting her hair. She tucked it back and glanced at the street stretching ahead of them.

Pretty. But not mine.

“So,” Cheyenne said, as though she’d decided the silence had stretched too far, “are you all packed?”

“As packed as you get when your possessions mostly include clothes and two dogs.” Sloan grinned for real this time. “Though, I guess I do have a lot of clothes.”

“My mom still wants you to stop at the ranch so she can say hi to Charlie. She says she misses her.”

“I’m sure Charlie misses your mom,” Sloan said with a laugh. “She fattened her up and now Charlie’s hating her new diet.”

Charlie was a huge part of the reason Sloan had stayed with the Murdocks for nearly four months after the whole wedding debacle. As it turned out, Charlie was not only not a he, but also pregnant. The vet had believed she’d held on to those puppies while in the wild, finally relaxing and giving birth days after Sloan had arrived at the Murdock’s ranch.

Once the puppies had been weaned and found good homes, Charlie had come back to San Francisco with Sloan to stay with Dad. He hadn’t been thrilled about having not one but two dogs staying at his house, but Sloan had made it clear it was temporary.

Cheyenne gave Sloan a sidelong glance, as though trying to decide what to say. How to bridge the gap. She adjusted her sunglasses. “I’ll miss you,” she said, a slight tremor to her voice. “I know it’s been hard to see each other as much with Will being so busy and Bryce just starting to sleep through the night.” She exhaled. “The first year of motherhood gets you, let me tell you.”

Sloan paused in her step, then bit her lip, studying Cheyenne’s profile. Out of all her friends from the last few years of her life, Cheyenne was the only one who’d stuck around after the breakup. In some ways, it made sense. Cheyenne had been Sloan’s friend—they’d met in a yoga class in Bozeman—but it’d also been a reminder of the fragility of the relationships Sloan had made while with Evan.

“You know I love you, right?” Sloan said in a soft voice.

Cheyenne sniffled, swiping under her sunglasses. “I-I know. I just . . .”

Sloan gripped her forearm, sensing the undercurrent. All the things they hadn’t talked about after Cheyenne had come to see her in Jackson while Sloan was staying there.

They’d talked about the canceled wedding. The chaos at the hotel. Evan.

Kyle.

God, did we talk about Kyle.

Something cinched around Sloan’s heart, though, and she cut off that thought.