Page 2 of Override

Rachel likes her because she says Cindy “softens the corners.”

Matt asked me last month if this one was serious. I told him I had no idea what serious was supposed to feel like.

He looked at me over his coffee mug like I had personally offended his marriage.

The truth is, I’ve seen serious. I’ve seen the way Matt watches Rachel when she’s not looking. The absent minded way his hand reaches for hers like there has never been a question in his mind that she belongs there.

That kind of certainty feels fictional. Manufactured. Like one of those software updates everyone else downloaded and mine somehow skipped.

Maybe this is as close as I get. Maybe some people aren't built for all-consuming. Maybe comfortable counts.

I hit the landing and head for my door, too deep in my own head to register anything except the fact that I need a shower, sleep, and probably whatever leftover Chinese food Cindy usually steals from my fridge. The hallway light above apartment 2B flickers once as I slide the key into the lock. I make a mental note to call maintenance tomorrow, shove the door open, and step inside.

It takes me half a second to notice the shoes.

Brown leather. Expensive. Polished. Not mine.

I stop with the door still open behind me, cool night air slipping across the back of my neck while my brain searches for an explanation that makes sense.

A neighbor dropped by. A friend from work. Wrong apartment.

The possibilities line up and die just as quickly as they come because from farther down the hall I hear it.

A laugh. Soft. Breathless. Followed by the unmistakable thud of my headboard tapping against drywall.

Every muscle in my body locks.

I don't feel that cinematic rush of anger people talk about. No heat. No immediate heartbreak. Just a strange, absolute stillness, like someone reached inside my chest and hit pause.

My fingers tap once against the keyring. Then twice. Then I set them down carefully on the entry table and start walking.

The hall feels longer. Narrower too, the walls pulling inward with every step. Another sound drifts toward me. Cindy. A moan I know I’m supposed to recognize as intimate but all I hear is information. Mattress springs. Rustling sheets. A male grunt.

My bedroom door is cracked. Two fingers press against the wood and ease it wider.

There she is.

Blonde hair fanned across my pillow like some staged romance scene. My dark sheets twisted around pale thighs. Some guy bent over her, his back to me, and it takes me a second to place him—rooftop bar, sometime last month, one of the finance douchebags she kept insisting was “actually hilarious.”

No one notices me at first. Which somehow makes it worse. Not the cheating. The carelessness. The assumption that this space was secure. That I was stupid enough not to see.

Cindy looks up. Her entire body jerks. “Oh my God—Keaton—”

I don't answer. My gaze moves around the room instead, cataloging without permission. Her red dress on the floor. A wineglass sweating onto my nightstand. My laptop bag shoved half beneath the bed where someone must have kicked it.

Tiny details. Meaningless details.

Except they aren't meaningless because suddenly every object in the room feels like proof that there were signs. There had to be signs. Pattern changes. Delays. Missed cues. Some fracture in routine I should have caught before it ever got this far.

Cold slides down my spine. Not because I love her. That realization is almost laughable in this moment. But because I didn't know.

Eight months with this woman in my home, in my bed, smiling at me from across restaurant tables, texting me little red hearts when I was gone, asking me how missions went like she gave a damn—and I did not know.

I should have known. The thought hits hard enough to make my jaw clench.

I should have seen a shift somewhere. A text answered too slowly. A canceled plan. A look that lingered in the wrong place. Something.

Anything.