Page 118 of Beautiful Ruins
“Thanks . . . Shane,” I murmured, forcing a tight smile as I swallowed over the lump in my throat.
I couldn’t bring myself to call him Chief—not yet. In time, perhaps. But the raw edge of my father’s death hadn’t quite scabbed over.
Shane lingered in his cruiser a moment longer, his gaze finally sliding to Rowan. A flicker of something cold and appraising shifted in his eyes. “Knight,” he said, with that same half-mocking nod my father always used to give the boys he didn’t want to like but couldn’t help respecting. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Rowan grunted, but it was more a scoff—or a warning. “Elliot.”
Shane drove off without another word. Tyres spun up red dust, carrying the sour tang of petrol fumes in the air behind the car.
“What an arsehole,” Rowan muttered, dropping an arm around my shoulders, anchoring me against him. “I swear he’s got it out for me.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t hide my smile. “Jeez, I wonder why. Maybe because last time you saw him, you spat blood on his shoes? He might be good for this town,” I said, only half lying. “Might keep you Riders in line for once.”
Rowan huffed, but the smirk was back, curling at the edge of his mouth. “Doubt it. Pretty sure one boss breathing down my neck is enough for me. You know I only answer to you, Firefly.” His hand slipped down, fingers digging into my side.
I backhanded him in the chest. “Don’t get cute, Ro.” My voice came out more desperate than I meant, a reflex from years of always defending boundaries. “Nicky is still out there somewhere, doing god knows what.”
Rowan glanced away, jaw tightening. “Yeah, well, we’ll handle him if he ever comes back.” He kissed the side of my head, lips leaving a brief, almost apologetic warmth. “But until then, can we please have one afternoon without club bullshit? Just us.”
I narrowed my eyes but softened almost immediately. “Fine. But how about you start with not pissing off the new chief during his first week. He’s better than that fill-in we had to deal with since Dad died.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “And try not to get yourself killed.”
“The second I can do,” Rowan said, planting another kiss on my temple, the stubble covering his jaw rough against my skin. “The first? I make no promises, baby.” He smirked, and I almost melted against him.
He looked good without that constant frown on his face—too good.
He stepped back, stretching until his shirt rode up, revealing a scar on his hip I’d traced a thousand times in the dark. “You good with the last boxes? I need to fire up the barbecue before the boys and Jazz get here. You know what Scout’s like when he has to wait for food.”
I grinned. “I’ve carried heavier things, Ro. I’ll be fine.”
Rowan pressed a quick kiss on my lips, then ducked through the side door of his house, the one Logan had broken the lock on in high school so we could come and go without waking his old man.
The screen door slammed shut behind him, leaving me alone with the hum of the bush behind our houses swarming around me like the town itself was a living thing, breathing in time with my heartbeat.
The final stack of boxes sat by the steps of the front porch, the last of my stuff Rowan and I had packed at three a.m. when sleep wasn’t an option. Clothes, oldnotebooks, a couple of photo albums I forgot even existed.
One box was heavier than the rest, so I carried that one inside last, and up the staircase, past the wall that still had the dent from when I’d thrown a hairbrush at Logan for reading my diary out loud—while Rowan had been in the next room.
I set the box down in the hallway outside the bedroom I shared with Rowan, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the door next to it. The one with the faded ‘Keep Out’ sign, letters scrawled in Sharpie and half-scraped off.
Logan’s room.
I’d passed it a thousand times since moving in, sometimes pausing, sometimes all but running past it with my head down. I’d never crossed the threshold. Not because Rowan had asked me not to, but because there were lines even grief couldn’t force me to cross.
Until now.
My hand hovered over the doorknob as I pressed my forehead to the old timber and let the smell of dust and closed-in years fill my lungs. A floorboard creaked beneath my heel, loud in the silence. It felt like the house was warning me back.
But I turned the knob, anyway.
The air in Logan’s room was colder than the rest of the house. Yet still familiar. The curtains were drawn, but sun leaked through a crack in the fabric, striping the bed yellow.
Everything was exactly as it had been the last day Logan had been alive. Posters still lined the walls. The bed remained unmade. An empty glass, now full of dust, sat beside a dead phone on the nightstand.
In the corner sat the battered acoustic guitar he never learned to play, the pick wedged between the strings like he’d meant to come back and finish the song.
The scent was unfamiliar—less Logan, more memories—but the feeling was the same. I circled the room, fingertips brushing surfaces as if the act could conjure him back.
A black hoodie lay on the bed, sleeves stretched from him always pulling at the cuffs. His favourite sneakers, the ones he’d drawn skulls on with whiteout, sat lined up under the window, the soles worn flat from running everywhere instead of driving.
