Page 113 of Haunt Me

I just know I’m not there yet.

I don’t know if I ever will be.

Astra

I did not agree to axe throwing.

I agreed to meeting some of the girls, which Knox describes as a low-key hangout. Apparently, in Ashbourne that translates to a bar with a chain-link enclosure out back and a wall of throwing lanes that several visibly enthusiastic bikers are already lined up in front of.

“This is not low-key,” I tell Knox.

“Define low-key.”

“Nothing involving weapons.”

“They’re not weapons. It’s recreation.” He hands me a beer I didn’t ask for and steers me toward a cluster of women already laughing at something near the bar. “Go. Socialize. I promise nobody’s throwing anything at you.”

The girls are warm in a way that surprises me, quick to fold me into their conversations like I’ve always been a part of their group. For a while, I actually forget to be nervous about the axes.

That’s when I see him.

Wolf.

Leaning against the far wall, arms crossed. It takes my brain a full second to catch up with what my body already recognizes. The flannel he lent me that smelled like cedar and motor oil, that particular mechanic’s smell that clung to the collar even after I’d washed it twice. The one I gave back to Knox weeks ago to return to him. Same broad shoulders. Same guarded, exhausted set to his jaw that makes him look like a man attending under protest.

I haven’t stopped thinking about him since that night, if I’m honest, though I’d never admit that out loud to anyone who’s watching me like they already suspect it.

He fixed the scooter and had it back to me within the week, even though he never spoke to me himself. Knox handled it, dropping it back off at the cottage with barely a word about it, like the whole exchange was meant to stay off limits.

Wolf catches me looking. I don’t look away fast enough to pretend I wasn’t.

Recognition crosses his face, surprise tangled up with something harder to name, before he looks away, like pretending he didn’t see me might make it true.

I excuse myself from the group and cross the room to him.

“Wolf.” I stop a few feet from him.

He glances up. “Didn’t figure you for the ax-throwing type.”

“I’m not, really. Knox dragged me here.”

“That makes two of us,” he replies dryly.

Silence stretches for a beat too long, him clearly not planning on filling it, so I do it myself.

“You never gave me an opportunity to say thank you for fixing my scooter.”

“I wasn’t looking for a thank-you tour.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I fold my arms, matching his posture, refusing to let him make this smaller than it was. “I meant it would’ve been nice to actually see the person who pulled over during a storm for a stranger.”

Something shifts behind his amber eyes, quick and gone.

“There was no need to make it a bigger thing than it was.”

“Maybe I wanted it to be a bigger thing.”

That lands somewhere he clearly wasn’t ready for it to land, jaw working like he’s deciding whether to retreat further or actually respond.