Page 84 of Every Chance After

Memories tell me I should feel things, but I don’t. Our battery is dead—a fact that saddens and unburdens me. I couldn’t show up at the altar how he wanted; he didn’t show up for me when I needed him. Over and over. He drained the love right out of me.

“Here to beg me to take you back?” His smile curls with cold arrogance.

“No. You don’t want me back, Ashe. I don’t want you either. Not after… Anyway, that’s not why I’m here,” I mutter, trying to keep my voice low.

“Then, what do you want, Marnie?”

“I want my notebook.”

He hesitates. “What notebook?”

I scoff. “Mynotebook. The one you used to makethatdisplay.” I motion to the nearest end cap. “And every other one in this store. The one that told you what layout to use and what lights to buy.Mynotebook. It belongs to me.”

His hazel eyes narrow as he looks down on me. “What notebook?”

He says it slowly, assuring me I’ll never see it again. A cheesy, handwritten, and sketched scrapbook of my time at Sunny’s, the culmination of every conceivable effort over a decade to make his family’s store the best it could be snatched away like I was never there. LikeIdidn’t matter.

And him, bitterly keeping me from it. He could’ve made a copy, transferred the information to the cloud, and had it forever. He could’ve asked me for it in the first place, and I would’ve handed it over. I never minded him using my ideas or even taking credit for them. But under his intimidating glare, I know his refusal isn’t about ownership of the ideas or worries that he can’t survive without them.

It’s about keeping me from what’s mine—the one thing I have left to claim. A game of keep away with me, squirreling around after it while he holds it just out of reach. It’s about hurting me.

As if I haven’t hurt enough.

“You are such a child,” I breathe, smiling through the simmering anger. “Thanks for assuring me I’m better off without you or Sunny’s.”

His jaw tightens as his lips clamp together. “Get out of my store.”

“Your store? Doesn’t look like it.”

Practically seething, he points toward the entrance as if I don’t know where it is inhisstore and stares me down as my feet inch backward.

I don’t breathe again until escaping the final double doors. The cool March air hits me first, followed by sunlight, as I step wearily onto the pavement and search the parking lot for The Beast’s distinctive red and white panels. I feel genuinely winded by my encounter with Ashe, angry at him and myself for thinking this could’ve turned out any other way. Even my fingers tremble with irritation as I chalk this excursion up to yet another foolhardy move by Marnie fucking Strange, and add my Trapper Keeper to the long list of things Marnie lost in the accident.

But then, my eyes land on the truck and zoom in on Grady Tripp. He leans against the passenger door, waiting for me with a devilish smile.

The sun catches on the plastic and flickers in my eyes, forcing a gasp as I realize what he’s holding. Grady Tripp has commandeered my notebook.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

Grady

The lookon Marina’s face when she sees me holding her notebook is something I’ll remember forever. Her distress vanishes into surprise and then gasping relief and appreciation—she can’t fucking believe it. I bet whatever he said to her, the stunted prick, convinced her that she’d never see it again, that it’d be his to steal forever, holding a piece of her captive.

That’s what men like him do. They take.

She makes her way to me, barely looking both ways before crossing and slowed only by the pinch still in her hip. Then, like she’s crossing a difficult finish line, she lunges forward, latching onto my neck and crushing the thick notebook between us.

“Thank you,” she whispers against my neck. “Thank you.”

I force down the uncomfortable lump in my throat and breathe her in—the softness of her, the way her hair tickles my cheek, her delicate strength—and, for the first time since the accident, the unbearable weight of guilt eases gently off my shoulders.

“My fucking pleasure, Captain,” I manage finally.

She chuckles, pulling away and taking her notebook with her. She doesn’t look at it, though. Only me. Her sweet, adoring smile becomes my new mission.

“You really are something, Tripp Grady Tripp.”

“Yeah, but what? That’s the question.” I turn and open the door for her. “Ready?”

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