Page 13 of Without a Trace
Kane shrugged. “She’s Scarlett. We were all screwed the second she showed up.”
Rhett glanced away. Kane didn’t say anything, but I knew they felt it too. Not the same way Trace and I did—not the love that kept you up at night. But something just as dangerous. The kind that says: I’d die for her.
Trace looked up, eyes haunted. “I didn’t expect her to still feel like home.”
That shut us up for a minute.
I didn’t hate him. That was the worst part. I wanted to. Wanted to throw him through a fucking wall for the look in Scarlett’s eyes when he left. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because part of me still remembered the way she looked at him back then—like maybe he was the only thing that made sense.
Still was.
Maybe he was…
But that didn’t mean I was stepping aside.
The dim living room thickened with tension and something like grief.
“She’ll be pissed in the morning,” Rhett said.
“She’ll pretend she’s fine,” I added.
Trace didn’t say anything.
But he didn’t leave, either.
Trace
Itold myself I wouldn’t go near the fire pit again.
That I’d keep my distance, stay inside. Do the right thing for once in my goddamn life.
But distance doesn’t mean shit when your whole chest still smells like her.
The fire was mostly out by the time I made it down the hill—just low coals, the ghost of heat left in the sand. The tequila bottle was still there. Half-empty. Abandoned like it didn’t carry her fingerprints all over it.
Crouched next to the embers, I let the smoke sting my eyes. My hands wouldn’t stop moving. Restless. I ran them over my face, then through my hair, trying to shake her out of me.
She didn’t know I left to protect her.
Thought I ran.
Maybe I did.
I reached in my pocket for a cigarette, then spotted it near the firepit, half-buried in gravel beside a bottle of tequila. Her lighter. The one she used all those years ago and never gave back. I picked it up, slid my fingers along the engraved crestshe never asked about, and lit the cigarette. My fingers trembled slightly as I brought it to my lips. That night plays in my head like it’s mine to suffer—her eyes on me, that look like she knew. Like she fucking knew I loved her and just didn’t say it.
Because saying it would’ve been the point of no return.
Because once I crossed that line, I wouldn’t survive. That’s the thing about Scarlett. You don’t fall for her once. You fall forever. And then you fucking drown.
I loved her. It’s why I left.
And now I’m back, circling like a fucking vulture, waiting for the fallout.
Footsteps echoed behind me.
Alden sat beside me, arms resting on his knees like we weren’t about to unravel the only thread we all still had in common.
“She still doesn’t remember,” he said.
