Page 17 of Bolt To Me
Cory lay awake too, one arm flung over his eyes, replaying her face in the kitchen, the look she gave him when he pulled back instead of leaning in. He told himself it was better this way, that he was protecting her from the disappointment he was sure would come. But the truth was uglier: he was protecting himself. Because if she chose to walk away later, it would gut him.
By morning, she’d decided they were stuck in a loop neither of them knew how to break. She found him by the tractor, his sleeves rolled up, his hair damp with sweat. The smell of diesel hung in the warm air. He straightened when he saw her coming, shading his eyes with a hand.
“Hey,” he said.
She stopped a few feet away, arms crossed. “We need to talk.”
His rag stilled in his hands. “Okay.”
“I can’t do this,” she said. “The half-in, half-out thing. It’s making me crazy.”
He swallowed, eyes narrowing slightly. “So… what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I need to step back. Figure myself out before I get wrapped up in somebody else again.”
His gaze held hers for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “If that’s what you need.”
She hated how calm he sounded. She hated that he wasn’t trying to stop her. “Guess I’ll see you around,” she said, her voice thinner than she wanted.
“Guess so.”
She turned and walked away, the sound of her footsteps swallowed by the dirt. He watched her go, forcing himself to stay rooted to the spot, every instinct screaming to call her back. But he didn’t. Because the second she turned around, he’d have totell her he was scared, not of her, but of himself. And he couldn’t do that.
The cooler by the door was still there, its contents now crumpled in on themselves, their scent having faded to a faint, sour aroma. She closed the door behind her and let it stay outside.
A Man Alone
Cory stood in the floor-to-ceiling window of his hotel suite in Dallas, the glass stretching taller than a man and cool beneath his fingertips. Below, the city breathed in great mechanical sighs. Traffic streamed in restless ribbons of red and white, neon signage buzzing in impatient pulses, the muted thump of bass spilling from rooftop bars that were already crowded, though the night was still young. Somewhere far below, a horn blared, sharp and quick, swallowed almost instantly by the hum of the freeway. From up here, it was all small, people reduced to specks, their voices carried away by the wind, the movement of the streets like veins in a restless, glowing body.
It should have felt like progress. This was the view men chased, the high vantage point, the corner suite, the air-conditioned hush of a hotel designed to make you forget you’d ever been anywhere else. The kind of place where the carpets were thick enough to silence footsteps and the ice buckets werepolished to a ridiculous shine. A place where someone else made your bed every morning, smoothing out the evidence you’d ever been in it at all.
He’d spent the day being exactly the man everyone in his family thought he should be. Closing deals over mid-morning coffee in offices that smelled faintly of leather and ambition. Standing before a room of oil executives in a suit that cost more than his first truck, delivering a presentation so tight it made the VP of something-or-other slap him on the back and mutter, “Hell of a job, Hayes.” Laughing in just the right moments over ribeye and cabernet in a steakhouse so strict they’d turned away a man for wearing the wrong shoes. He’d been sharp, collected, easy with his smile, every inch the version of himself they all expected.
But now, with the door locked, the city spread out like a jeweled map beneath him, the tie hanging loose at his throat, he felt none of it. He felt hollow. Not the kind of emptiness that came from being alone for an evening, but the deeper kind. The kind you only notice when you’ve had someone beside you, and now they aren’t there to take up the space.
Carli had taken up space in ways he hadn’t realized until she wasn’t within arm’s reach. She had filled the quiet without trying, her dry laugh drifting in from the kitchen when she thought something was funnier than she let on. The way she used her hands when she talked, not in big sweeping gestures, but with precise, deliberate flicks and taps, as though her fingers were punctuation marks to the sentences she didn’t entirely trust herself to say aloud. The sound of her bare feet against the guesthouse floorboards, a quiet, unhurried rhythm that still somehow found its way into his memory now, echoing in the silence of this sterile, too-white suite.
He hadn’t meant to leave without saying goodbye. He told himself that often enough, it almost sounded true. But the truthwas more complicated. The truth was that waking up with her curled into his side, one hand caught against his chest, her hair spilling across his jaw, had been a moment he’d wanted to hold onto longer than was safe. And for one terrifying second, he’d thought: This is it. This is what it could be. And that thought, that sharp, sudden weight of possibility, had scared the hell out of him.
So he’d done what he always did when things pressed too close and when she told him she needed some space. He ran. He told himself it was work, urgent, time-sensitive, something Jackson couldn’t handle alone. The kind of trip that justified dropping everything. But it wasn’t. Not really. He’d needed air after what she said to him out by the tractor. He needed time to figure out if he was truly the man Carli could count on, or if he was just another chapter in her history, a charming, good-time interlude she’d eventually outgrow.
However, the longer he was gone, the more the silence ate at him. The guesthouse had started to feel like home in a way no apartment, no rented condo, no hotel suite ever had, not because of the building, or the view, or even the town, but because of her. She had a way of making a place feel anchored, of tying small threads between herself and whatever space she occupied until it hummed faintly with her presence. And now, sitting hundreds of miles away, he could feel those threads going slack.
Did she miss him? Did she hate him? Was she gone already?
He turned away from the window and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. His tie hung loose, his shirt untucked, the sleeves shoved up past his elbows. His hair was a little wild from running his hands through it too many times today, a nervous tell he’d never been able to break. He glanced toward the nightstand. His phone lay there, screen dark, an accusing little slab of glass.
No missed calls. No unread texts. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d chosen to leave, after all, but the absence still landed sharply. He could still hear her voice, though, calling his name in that way that made it sound like it meant something. And he wasn’t sure he’d earned that right anymore.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, then leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the patterned carpet. The city outside was still going, still moving, still loud, still shining. But up here, in the insulated hush of the fifteenth floor, it was just him. No warm light from the guesthouse kitchen. No soft thump of her footsteps. No familiar scent of her shampoo lingered in the sheets. Just the faint tang of bleach from the housekeeping staff, the low hum of the air conditioner, and the muted chaos of a city that didn’t care if he was here or not.
He thought of her walking into the feed store, hair pulled back, smile that was more about convenience than warmth, a list of things in her head she probably wouldn’t write down. Thought of her leaning in the doorway of the guesthouse, barefoot, holding a coffee mug in both hands like it was a shield. Thought of the way she’d look at him sometimes, a kind of measured patience that felt almost like trust.
That trust was fragile. He’d known that from the start. And he was testing it in ways he wasn’t sure could be repaired. He lay back on the bed, the comforter too smooth beneath him, staring up at the shadowed ceiling. The hotel suite smelled faintly of citrus and starch, as though it had been scrubbed clean of any hint of life. Outside, sirens wound through the streets, far away, but close enough to remind him the city was still alive.
He thought of calling her. Just to hear her voice. Just to close the distance between Dallas and Willow Creek for a few minutes. But what would he even say? “I miss you” felt too bare, too soon after he’d walked away without so much as a backward glance. “I’m sorry” was closer, but still not enough. Sohe did nothing. Just lay there, the phone inches away, the night pressing in, the city’s heartbeat pulsing far below.
The truth was, he didn’t know if she’d be there when he got back. And the worst truth, the one he tried not to name, was that he wasn’t entirely sure he deserved it if she was. Restlessness pushed him off the bed. The walls felt too tight, the air too conditioned, like it had been sifted of anything human. He grabbed his jacket and stepped into the Dallas night.
