Page 127 of The Wild Card

“Maybe we could do it again sometime. If you want.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, scratching Murphy’s ears.

“I’d like that,” he finally says.

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”

More silence. The kind that used to be comfortable and now just feels heavy with everything we’re not saying.

“Goodnight, Emmie.”

“Goodnight, Crew.”

He sets Murphy down and disappears into his room. I hear the door close—not a slam, just a soft click—and I’m left standing in the kitchen alone.

It wasn’t a breakthrough. It wasn’t a reconciliation. It was just two people who used to be something trying to figure out how to be nothing.

But it was also dinner together. Conversation. The first real words we’ve exchanged in weeks that weren’t written on Post-it notes.

It’s not enough.

But maybe it’s a start.

I wash the last of the dishes, put away the leftovers in the blue container, and go to my room with Murphy padding along behind me.

That night, I fall asleep thinking about a cabin in Oklahoma, and stars you can really see, and a man who builds things with his hands because it’s easier than fixing what’s broken inside him.

I wonder if he knows I’d help him fix that too.

If he’d ever let me.

Chapter Thirty-One

Horrible Men

Emmie

“I’m just saying.” Gavin spears a piece of salmon, looking far too pleased with himself. “I told you from the beginning something was off about him.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“I absolutely said that. Ask Mom. I said, ‘That guy’s too intense. Too wound up. Mark my words, it’s not going to last.’”

I push a cherry tomato around my plate. We’re at the same lunch spot we always go to—Gavin’s choice, some overpriced bistro near his office where everyone wears suits and talks about quarterly projections.

“He wasn’t that intense,” I mutter.

“Em, the guy had a seventeen-page roommate agreement. With tabs.”

“It was actually kind of impressive.”

Gavin sets down his fork, giving me his big-brother look. “You’re defending him.”

“I’m not defending him. I’m just saying he wasn’t as bad as you’re making him sound.”

“He broke up with you.”