Page 47 of Mended Fences

Typical Chase.

“Please don’t ask me to leave you like this.”

She just stared at me, eyes hard, unforgiving.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m sorry, Elena.”

I willed her to believe me, to believe that I would do whatever she needed me to. But fuck, I did not want her to go back there. I couldn’t stand the idea of her being hurt again by that bastard.

“You’ll call me? If something happens?”

She gave me some sort of half shrug, half head shake that I didn’t know what to make of. I stared at her for a beat—her dark hair, her sad eyes, the stubborn jut of her chin. I memorized as much of her face as I could in that moment, just in case I never had a chance to see it again.

Elena watched me dress. She watched me walk to the door. And she watched me leave.

All without saying another fucking word.

Nothing healeda heartbreak faster than a dozen beers and a few lines.

Probably shouldn’t have shown up to the cidery construction site high as a kite and drunk as a skunk.

But what difference did it make?

Once a fuckup, always a fuckup.

Chapter Fifteen

CHASE

Now, December 2024

The neon BudLight sign cast a sickly blue glow across the scratched surface of Callaghan’s bar, making the untouched whiskey in front of me look almost black. Ice clinked against glass somewhere behind me, followed by the familiar hiss of beer hitting a pint glass—sounds that used to feel like home but now set my teeth on edge.

I’d been here for hours, since I picked myself up off the hospital floor and dragged myself back to Sable Point after the bomb Elena had unwittingly dropped on me.Pregnant.

My finger traced the rim of the glass for the hundredth time. When I’d ordered it, Kai had raised a brow but said nothing. He knew better than anyone that sometimes you had to stare your demons in the face to remember why you were fighting them.

Didn’t stop him from eyeing me every ninety seconds, though. That was when it hit me.Step two: find a sponsor.

“Hey, Kai?”

He responded with a tilt of his chin in my direction.

“Will you be my sponsor?”

He gave me a single nod, and that was that.

I went back to staring at the liquid in my glass, but I wasn’t going to drink it. The rush of cold December air hit me before I heard the door close. But it wasn’t the cold that made every muscle in my body go rigid. It was her. Even without looking, I knew Elena had walked in—like my body had developed its own Elena-radar over the last year. A hint of that dark vanilla scent that haunted my dreams drifted over, and my heart did that stupid stuttering thing it always did around her.

“I wasn’t going to drink it,” I muttered as she took the stool next to me.

“Okay,” Elena said softly.

I kept my eyes fixed on the whiskey, terrified of what I’d see in her face. Pity would break me. Indifference would destroy me. The gentle understanding in her voice was already doing enough damage.

“I just needed to know I could sit here and not drink it.” My voice came out rougher than I’d intended, scraping against my throat like gravel.

“You don’t have to explain, Chase. I get it.”