Page 113 of The Wild Card

“Someone like Reece the chef?”

The name feels like a knife between my ribs.

“Yeah,” I manage. “Someone like that.”

Foster is quiet for a long moment. Then he sets down his hammer and sits on the porch steps, looking out at the trees.

“You know what I think?” he says. “I think you’re so scared of being left that you’d rather do the leaving yourself. I think you convinced yourself this is noble—protecting her from you—when really it’s just cowardice.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“I’m not here to support your bad decisions. I’m here to tell you you’re being an idiot.” He glances back at me. “That woman is the best thing that ever happened to you. And you let her go because you were too afraid to find out if she’d stay.”

The words land somewhere deep, somewhere I’ve been trying not to look.

“It’s too late,” I say. “She’s already moving on.”

“One date isn’t moving on. One date is trying to distract herself from the asshole who broke her heart.” Foster stands, brushing off his jeans. “It’s not too late, Crew. But it will be if you keep hiding out up here, building a cabin you’re never going to live in, pretending you’re fine when you’re clearly falling apart.”

I don’t respond. Just stare at the boards beneath my feet, the nails I’ve driven in, the tangible evidence of work I can point to and say I did that. I fixed that.

If only everything were that simple.

We work in silence for the rest of the afternoon. The porch takes shape, board by board, nail by nail. Something solid emerging from something broken.

Part of me wishes it were that easy with people.

Part of me wishes I could tear out the rotted parts of myself and replace them with something new, something worthy of the woman I fell for.

Not because someone forced me. Not because it was expected. But because she deserved more than the man I used to be. More than the man I still am.

But I don’t know how to be anyone else.

And some things, once broken, can’t be fixed with a hammer and nails.

* * *

That night, I lie on the cabin’s bare floor—no furniture yet, just a sleeping bag and a lantern—and stare at the ceiling.

Through the windows, I can see stars. Thousands of them, bright and clear in a way they never are in Dallas.

You can see them from my balcony sometimes, I’d told her once. Late at night, when most of the city’s asleep.

I wonder if she’s looking at the sky right now.

I wonder if she’s thinking about me at all, or if she’s already replaced me with someone who doesn’t make everything so goddamn complicated.

I wonder if Reece the sous chef knows how she takes her coffee, or that she cries at commercials about paper towels, or that she hums off-key when she’s testing recipes.

I wonder if he’ll learn to read her the way I did—every shift in mood, every unspoken need.

I wonder if she’ll let him.

My phone buzzes. I pull it out—one bar of service, barely—and see a text from Foster.

It’s not too late.

I stare at the words for a long time.