Page 402 of The Winslow Brothers

I nod then, licking my lips to keep the tears in my eyes from escaping. “What does that mean? What do you want from me?”

“It means…I don’t know?” Her eyes meet mine, but her shoulders sag forward. “I don’t know, Ty. I just need some space. To figure things out—to make the decisions I need to and to mend the things that are broken inside me. You deserve a woman who’s whole. Who’s ready to go all in with you.”

“All of that’s great, Rach. But I just want you.”

“I want you too, Ty. But this…this is what Ineed.”

My ears ring, and my chest feels like it could crack in half. “So…that’s it?” I whisper. “Space?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and her voice shakes with emotion. “I just need time, Ty.”

“Okay,” I say and slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “If that’s what you need, that’s what I’ll give you.”

“Ty, I’m so—” she whispers, but I shake my head and hold out a hand.

“Rachel, you don’t owe me an apology. You don’t owe me anything, actually.”

“Don’t hate me.”

“I could never hate you,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. Rachel Rose taught me how to love. I place one last soft kiss to the apple of her cheek, and then…I walk away.

Back to my car and back to the city, back into the nothingness of life without her.

Everyone acts like love is such a great fucking thing, but they never want to talk about what happens when love isn’t returned. What happens when you want to give someone your heart, your everything, and they don’t want it?

What happens then, huh?Fucking misery. That’s what happens.

Ty Winslow doesn’t get the girl in the end. Cleo was wrong, and the fortune dog is officially dead.

Tuesday, March 12th

Rachel

I should be in class, but I can’t bring myself to step foot on campus. At least, not today.

Not after my near cross-country escape, buckets of tears, and breaking the heart of the one guy I didn’t want to break.

I did manage to send my two professors an email, letting them know that I wouldn’t be in attendance today, and while it’s not good to miss out on any class when you’re at the graduate level, I needed a mental health day.

Surely anyone would understand yesterday’s whirlwind was too much to process in a single night.

I clear my throat, push myself out of my thoughts with a little shake of my head, and make myself concentrate on taking a few photos for Little Rose Bakeshop’s Instagram page.

A simple request from my sister, and one that normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal but feels difficult as hell.

I spent several years taking photos like this and getting paid for it. Yet here I am, a woman who apparently can’t stage a fucking Instagram photo because she’s an utter mess.

Get it together, my mind whispers, and this time, I actually listen.

I arrange several of Lou’s famous lemon meringue cupcakes on a cheery yellow plate and snap some pics. Every few shots, I adjust the lighting and the angle, until I eventually capture the kinds of images that would make any cupcake lover salivate.

But before I can load the new photos on to my laptop for a quick edit, my sister’s voice fills my ears, coming from somewhere in the front of the bakery.

“Rachel!”

“What?”

“Delivery!”

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