Page 190 of Rush

I’m not exactly rushing to relive the experience.

I side-eye him. “You’re the worst.”

“So I’ve been told,” he says.

He smiles like he’s already won.

I turn back to the sink, lips twitching. But the heat from earlier hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, it simmers lower now—tight and coiled in my stomach.

I hear him sigh. “Elena, for what it’s worth…I don’t think you were stupid. That whole Alex situation—none of it was on you.”

I freeze.

“I appreciate that,” I whisper, not sure if he even hears me.

I’m not naive for falling for Alex—I know that. But I hate how easily I bought into the version he sold me: the charm, the grand declarations, the media frenzy that turned us into a whirlwind fantasy.

I was hooked on the high of being wanted. Of being chosen. Of being swept up by someone like him.

Broderick wipes down the last tray, then leans into the counter.

“The way he keeps posting after…that’s dickhead behavior,” he says, voice even, eyes ahead. “But if I were in his position, and I lost you. I would move heaven and earth just for a chance to get you back.”

Time stands still.

My heart thuds against my ribs and all the air from my lungs evaporate into nothing.

“El—you okay? Did I say something wrong?”

I cough awkwardly, trying to remember how to breathe. How to speak.

And just like that—I desperately tape the door back onto its hinges, flimsy as it is. It shields something far too tender, far too broken—my heart.

“Brody, you…can’t say things like that.”

“Sorry, sorry. Won’t happen again, don’t report me to HR.” He laughs but the sound falls flat. We return to our respective tasks. Him drying and me scrubbing.

Would he have been the better choice?

Perhaps we would be living in bliss instead of this awkward place between the sheets.

“Have you guys spoken? Since everything?” He ventures after a moment.

I nod, slow. “He called months ago. Drunk. I hung up.” My voice tightens. “He still calls, but I don’t want to pick up—there’s really nothing else to say.”

I don’t tell Broderick how every move Alex makes still gnaws at me—feeds an ache that festers and grows, leaving me trapped in a web of dreams and regrets. A web that Broderick is now tangled in.

What’s worse is that the damage Alex left behind makes me question everything Broderick says and does—even though he’s done nothing to deserve it.

“So you don’t want closure?” he asks finally, cocking his head, like he’s studying the shape of my silence.

“What for? He made his choice. He doesn’t want me,” I whisper, hating how fragile I sound.

“And if he still did?” He looks at me, hopeful.

I don’t answer. The question hangs heavy in the air.

Could I really go back to Alex after everything with Broderick?