Page 40 of California Wild

But Jesse couldn’t get comfortable.

His soda sat heavy in his hand. The bubbles felt too sharp. Everything around him—conversations, music, movement—just buzzed in the background like static.

And behind his ribs, something ached.

Hayley.

Her voice. Her eyes. The flash of disappointment when she’d told him he couldn’t just keep showing up with empty hands and full apologies.

You’ll always be an addict.

And I can’t go through what I went through before.

The words had stuck like splinters. He couldn’t dig them out.

Jesse exhaled, rubbing a hand along his jaw, rolling the tension from his shoulders. The concrete rooftop felt too solid beneath his boots. The laughter too far away.

Isaac slid back into the booth beside him, offering a half-smile without looking up. “You’re somewhere else, man.”

Jesse didn’t answer right away.

He just stared out across the lights of OB, where the ocean blurred into the night, wondering when the hell this place stopped feeling like home.

Then—

Isaac elbowed him. Not gently.

Jesse blinked, snapped from whatever haze he’d drifted into. “What?”

Isaac didn’t answer at first—just tipped his chin toward the front entrance, mouth pulling into a slow, almost cruel smile.

“Look who just showed up.”

Jesse followed his gaze.

And his stomach bottomed out.

There, stepping through the wide, weather-warped doors of The Holding Company like she fucking owned the place, was Hayley Fox.

Same platform boots.

Same black eyeliner, sharp enough to cut.

Same auburn hair, long and wild and catching the bar lights like fire.

But it wasn’t just her.

Beside her, laughing at something she said, was Caiden Galway.

Lead guitarist.

Co-vocalist.

The media’s favorite “will-they-won’t-they” story—only Jesse knew better.

They already had.

And seeing them together now—too close, too easy—it hit Jesse like a fist to the sternum.

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