Page 43 of Seeking Shadows

“I don’t want to lose your friendship.”

“That depends.” I cross my arms. “Are you still going to be a dick to Mia?”

“No. I’ll apologize. In person. She’s next on my list of people I actually owe something real to.”

“You’ve been on a streak of screwing up lately.”

He laughs bitterly, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, no shit. So... can we just chill? Be friends. Partners again.”

“Like I said. Treat Mia right, and we’re good.”

He hesitates. Then mutters, “She reminds me of Elise.”

The words hang in the air like smoke. I freeze. Carter never talks about his sister. Elise was sacred ground—untouched, unspoken. One of the few silences we never broke.

I swallow hard.

“I got angry because... of course she’d win your heart. Elise would’ve, too. And that hurt. It made me bitter.”

My chest tightens. I know what this costs him to say.

“Grief’s a bitch,” I say. “Shows up however it wants.”

“Yeah... maybe.” He looks away. “But when I look at Mia, it’s not the same. Just... part of Elise feels alive again.”

“She has that effect,” I murmur.

Another silence. But not a heavy one. Just... honest.

“Are we okay?” he asks.

I give a slight nod. “Yeah, bro. We’re good.”

He lets out a breath, gives a half-smile, and pulls up a chair beside me. Not like a rival. Not like a project.

Just like a friend.

One who, somehow, still made it back.

PRESENT

For someone who spent years without feeling the slightest bit of attraction to anyone, this new crisis is really starting to piss me off.

I was never the type to need someone. Never the type to crave someone’s touch, to miss closeness, to lose my mind over them.

It was always easy to keep my distance.

Easy to ignore.

If I wanted something, it was quick, superficial—preferably when I wasn’t sober enough to care.

Sex was never about connection.

Never about need.

Just something I could take or leave without a second thought.

But now?

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