Page 109 of Your Place or Mine

A crunch of gravel pulled me from the spiral. I looked up sharply, hand already halfway to my keys, when I spotted him. Drew walked toward me with cautious steps and a crease between his brows.

He'd found me once before here. First time I ever brought whiskey to cry into the dirt like an idiot.

I hadn’t expected him to show up again.

He said nothing as he approached; he just let his eyes flick to the stone and then back to me. His mouth tightened.

"Thought you might be here," he said.

I looked away. "Didn't feel like being found."

"Yeah, well," he sighed, stopping a few feet away and glancing back toward the path, "I didn’t see you the first time.”

My stomach dipped. “What do you mean,first time?”

Before he could answer, I heard it.

Footsteps. Light ones.

The kind that weren’t meant to be heard.

And then I saw her.

Lydia.

She came into view slowly, cautiously, like she knew she didn’t belong but couldn’t help being there anyway.

She froze when she spotted me.

And I knew…I knew that this was the moment where I lost whatever the hell we’d almost started.

Because no matter how much heat there was between us, no matter how good her mouth tasted or how damnaliveshe made me feel, this right here? Sitting on the ground at my wife’s grave, looking like I was seconds from crumbling?

This was the reality.

And she didn’t deserve it.

Didn’t deservemy mess.

Drew turned toward her and gave her a quiet nod of reassurance, but I saw the worry all over his face. Not just for me. For her, too.

For whatever he knew she might be walking into.

Lydia didn’t come closer. She stayed at the edge of the trees, hands clasped tight in front of her, biting her bottom lip like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Smart girl.

“Don’t,” I said under my breath, eyes still on the gravestone. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Drew sat beside me with a heavy sigh. “She was worried. I was, too.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“You don’t have to.”

I dragged a hand down my face, swallowing the lump in my throat. “She shouldn’t have followed you here.”

“She didn’t,” he said evenly. “She saw me looking again. Offered to help.”

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