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Except it wasn’t.

And we both knew it.

Eddie was right; something had fundamentally changed.

It had been a slow deconstruction that started when I walked out of that exam room to see her in the waiting room. Every wall I’d put up had been knocked down harder with each moment with the two of them in their room.

Shit I hadn’t let myself think about in a decade came to the forefront of my mind. Only now, I was seeing it through an older, wiser, less bitter lens.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of that shit was fucked. Most of that shit was fucked. But a lot of the anger I’d been carrying around surrounding it was suddenly gone.

And because of the dissolution of that, it seemed like some things I’d accepted about myself and my life and my future had changed as well.

I guess you could make an argument for panic being partially to blame for me walking out of that room and leaving Zoe behind. Some part of me didn’t want to accept something different, wanted to crawl back to my old ways.

But I mostly stood by what I said to her when I left.

She deserved better.

They deserved safe and stable.

Those were not words most people would use to describe me. And I couldn’t let my selfish desire to be there allow to Zoe make the dumbest mistake of her life by attaching herself to a guy like me.

Hell, I didn’t even know if I could do a relationship if I wanted to. I never have before. The idea never even occurred to me.

I was pretty sure anyone who’d ever met me would unanimously agree that I was not husband material. I wasn’t even ‘can you help me move’ material. I’d never been anything close to dependable. Not in my adult life, anyway. That was how I’d planned it, how I wanted it.

Or ithadbeen.

“Christ,” I sighed, reaching to pull the nicotine patch off my arm.

I hadn’t wanted to be itching to smoke or smelling like it when helping Zoe and Lil’ Bit out.

But now that that was over, I needed a fucking smoke.

“Coast,” Velle called as I was digging around, trying to find a pack I swear I had stashed in the pantry.

“What?”

“Progress is progress, regardless of the cause,” he said, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t be stupid.”

When his hand moved away, I realized he’d slapped a new fucking patch on me.

I slammed my forehead into the doorjamb.

“Fuck,” I growled, moving out and slamming the door. “I’m going for a ride,” I said, storming out the back door and making my way to my bike.

I needed to get my head on right.

And I couldn’t do that with everyone else’s opinions trying to weasel their way in too.

But even as I pulled out of the driveway, I knew there was no distance I could drive, no speed I could push myself to that would let me outrun her.

That said, I was sure as fuck gonna try.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Zoe