Page 18 of Max Bannon

She’d been here all of two weeks, and already the air felt different when she wasn’t in the room. Like she’d brought light into corners I’d left untouched.

I made another cup of coffee I didn’t need and sat at the kitchen table, staring at the half-eaten muffin she’d left behind. Boris’s hair was still on the couch. Her hoodie—myhoodie now claimed by her—was slung across the chair she’d curled up in last night.

It was stupid.

It was dangerous.

Because I liked her. A lot more than I should.

And I knew—I knew—she was starting to feel the same way.

But I wasn’t the guy who could give her what she needed. Not now. Maybe not ever. Not with my feelings for Olivia still in myheart. It wouldn’t be fair to let her think we could be something I would never be ready for.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair, the old wood creaking under the weight of everything I didn’t want to feel.

Olivia.

Even after all this time, her name still hit like a punch to the chest.

I loved her. I thought she was it. The girl, the future, the forever. But when I went missing overseas—trapped in a village halfway across the world for three years, with no word home—she’d thought I was dead.

She mourned me. Buried me.

And then she moved on.

She married someone else. Had a baby. Built a life that didn’t include me.

And when I came back—torn, broken, haunted—she cried. Told me she still loved me. But that she’d made a choice. That her husband was good to her. That her daughter didn’t deserve to be pulled into a love story that had already ended.

So I walked away because I loved her enough to let her go.

But that love left something hollow in me.

And now?

Now there’s Tessa.

This wild, brilliant, messy woman with her pink lotion arms and goat-rescuing heart. She walked into my life like she was born for it—made me laugh, made me feel again.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

I told myself I wasn’t ready. That I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t go through the pain again of loving someone who might leave. But every time she smiles at me, every time she says my name like it matters…

I forget all the reasons I was supposed to stay guarded.

I gripped the coffee mug tighter, jaw clenched. I needed to tell her the truth. Soon. Before this went any further. Before she looked at me with hope in her eyes, and I didn’t have the strength to walk away.

But hell, part of me already knew—

I didn’twantto walk away.

I found Frasier where he always went when he needed quiet. He was working on motorcycles. His hands were taking apart a Harley Davidson engine. He didn’t look up when I walked over. Just said, “You’re brooding.”

“I’m not brooding.”

“You’re always brooding when your boots crunch like that. Heavy. Mad. Like you’re dragging something behind you.”

I folded my arms and leaned against the post next to him. “I didn’t come to talk.”

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