Page 65 of Hard Check

Are you really done?

Deleted it.

We should talk.

Deleted that too.

I'm sorry for—

Gone before I could finish the thought.

What was I apologizing for? Caring too much? Wanting something real? Believing that what we'd built together was worth fighting for?

A protein shake bottle caught my eye from across the room—one of Carver's fancy chocolate peanut butter ones, sitting forgotten on my kitchen counter. He'd left it there three days ago when my apartment felt like a place where two people lived.

The sight of it made the dam break. A raw and animal sound—half sob, half growl—escaped me. My shoulders shook, and my vision blurred as the tears suddenly rained down.

I'd cried after losses before and cried when my grandfather died. I cried the night before leaving home for college, but this was different. This was the sound of something fundamental breaking.

I grabbed the nearest thing—my practice hoodie balled up on the arm of the couch—and hurled it across the room. It struck the protein shake bottle with a hollow thunk, sending it tumbling to the floor, where it rolled in a lazy circle before coming to rest against the refrigerator.

Freezing rain began pattering against my windows as evening deepened into night, each drop matching the rhythm of my unraveling. I sat in the growing darkness, surrounded by the debris of a life that had felt full only twenty-four hours ago.

My phone remained silent. The bottle stayed on the floor. And somewhere across town, Carver was probably sleeping peacefully, already moving on from whatever temporary thing we'd been.

Sleep refused to come. I tried everything—counting ceiling tiles like Carver taught me, deep breathing exercises from my college sports psych class, even scrolling mindlessly through social media until my eyes burned. Nothing worked. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw his face in Coach's office: blank, professional, and already a stranger.

At one-thirty, I gave up and pulled on yesterday's jeans and a thick hoodie. The rain had intensified, drumming against my windows with the persistence of an interrogation. Ice was gathering on the sidewalks below. It was perfect weather for bad decisions.

The streets were nearly empty. More intelligent people were staying home. When I fishtailed halfway to Carver's, I thought for a moment that perhaps I should turn around.

Then, his building rose before me like a fortress, all red brick and narrow windows. A single light glowed in what I knew was his living room. He was awake, too.

I stood on the sidewalk in the pelting rain for five minutes, considering the wisdom of what I was about to do. It wasn't some casual conversation we could laugh off later. It would define everything—whether we fought for what we'd built or let it die in the wreckage of professional expectations.

The rain intensified, driving into my face with enough force to blur my vision. My hoodie had transformed into a waterlogged anchor, dragging at my shoulders with every step, but I climbed the concrete steps anyway.

At Carver's door, I hesitated. My hand hovered inches from the painted wood, trembling from the damp cold. What if he didn't answer? What if he did answer, but his expression told me everything I needed to know before I could get a word out?

I knocked once.

Nothing.

I knocked again, harder this time. The sound echoed in the narrow hallway.

Footsteps approached from inside—heavy, cautious. A pause. Then, the soft click of a deadbolt turning.

The door swung open to reveal Carver in gray sweatpants and a worn Forge t-shirt, hair sticking up at odd angles like he'd been running his hands through it. His eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed with a kind of exhaustion that mirrored my own. He took in my soaked appearance without surprise as if he'd been expecting this moment since I'd left his apartment the night before.

"Jesus Christ, Pike." His voice was rough. "You're drowning out there."

I didn't move from the threshold, rain dripping from my hair onto his doormat. We stared at each other across the space of eighteen inches that might as well have been an ocean.

My words came out in a rush. "Was I a mistake—or were you just scared?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. No sound emerged.

His dark eyes searched my face intensely. I stood there dripping on his doorstep, heart hammering against my ribs, waiting for an answer that would either save us or destroy the last fragile thread holding us together.

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