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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

RHYS

The house doesn’t feel like home without her.

It feels hollow.

Cold.

Like someone came in and ripped out the soul of the place while I wasn’t looking.

It’s been over a week since Ally left.

We didn’t even get to be together for long before she ran.

Seven mornings waking up to an empty bed, instinctively reaching for her, only to find cold sheets.

Seven nights of pretending I don’t hear the silence echoing in every corner of the house where her laughter used to live.

And every day since she’s been gone, I’ve felt a little less like myself.

I wake up angry. Go to sleep exhausted. Spend the in-between hours waiting for a text that never comes.

I keep expecting her to walk through the front door. To roll her eyes at me, call me dramatic, and throw herself onto the couch like she always does.

But she doesn’t.

She’s just… gone.

And I fucking hate it.

She’s been a part of my life for so long.

I miss my best friend.

I slam the fridge door shut harder than necessary. The thud reverberates through the kitchen like a gunshot. Yasmin flinches where she’s seated at the counter, her spoon pausing mid-air. Across from her, Chase leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

“Rhys, you need to get your shit together,” he says flatly.

“I’m fine,” I snap.

He raises an eyebrow, not even bothering to hide his disbelief.

“Yeah, okay,” Arden says, walking in behind me. “That explains why you’ve been stomping around the house like a pissed-off gorilla for the past eight days.”

I spin around, pulse rising. “Don’t start with me.”

“I’m just saying.” Arden shrugs, grabbing a bottle of water. “You’ve been unbearable. You snapped at Ella for asking you to pass the salt.”

“Because she said it like I was deaf!”

“She whispered , Rhys,” Yasmin says gently. “She was trying not to set you off.”

My jaw tightens. My fingers flex around the bottle I’m holding like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded. I hate that my friends are in the firing line of my pain. They don’t deserve this, but they don’t know what it’s like to want someone for so long, and when you finally get them, they just disappear.

It fucking hurts, and I’m dying inside.

“Look,” Chase sighs, “we get it. You’re hurting. But none of this—sulking, raging, lashing out—is going to bring her back.”

I close my eyes, inhaling through my nose. “You don’t get it. She didn’t just leave. She disappeared. She left without a word, without a goodbye, and none of you will tell me where the hell she went.”

There’s a silence. Tense. Loaded.

Then Yasmin mutters, almost too quietly, “Smalls is probably helping her in the way he does with all of us.”

The words hit like a hammer to the chest.

My eyes snap to hers. “What?”

Yasmin’s face drains of colour. “Nothing. I just?—”

“You said Smalls.” I step forward. “She’s with Smalls?”

She stammers, “No. I was just saying?—”

I don’t wait for her to finish. I drop the bottle on the counter and push through the kitchen, my brain racing ahead of my body.

Smalls.

Of course. He’s the one person I didn’t think of. He’s off-grid enough to stay quiet. He lives over ten hours away. But he’s familiar. Safe. Someone Arden would trust. Someone Ally would run to.

The pieces slam into place.

“Rhys!” Arden calls after me as I grab my keys. “Where are you going?”

I barely look at him. “To get my girl.”

“Rhys—slow down. Think about this?—”

I whirl around, anger bubbling. “Think about what ? How she left me, thinking she’s broken? How she ran because she thought it would hurt less if she disappeared instead of letting me prove her wrong?”

Chase steps into my path. “What if she’s not ready to come back?”

My fists clench. “Then I’ll show her she doesn’t have to do this alone. That she never had to.”

Arden meets my eyes. His expression is unreadable, but he doesn’t argue. He knows better.

Ashley’s voice cuts through the tension from the hallway. “You love her, don’t you?”

The words punch through my chest, loud and unflinching.

I nod. “With everything I have.”

She nods once, firm. “Then go prove it.”

I don’t wait another second.

The door slams behind me, and I’m already pulling out of the driveway before the engine finishes turning over.

I drive fast. The roads blur past me, the familiar landscape flashing by like background noise in a movie I don’t care about. My hands are tight on the wheel, my jaw clenched so hard it hurts.

Every hour I drive, I think of her.

Curled up on the couch in my hoodie. Laughing at my terrible attempts at pancakes. Softly snoring beside me in the middle of the night, mouth slightly open, arm sprawled across my chest.

She left because she thought she was protecting me.

She thought she was doing the noble thing.

But all she did was leave a crater.

And I’m done sitting inside the wreckage pretending I can breathe.

I drive for hours. Only stopping for food and fuel.

I need to get to my girl.

The turnoff to Smalls property is rough and barely lit. The tires crunch on gravel as I pull up the long, winding driveway. I cut the engine and sit there for a second, gripping the steering wheel, my pulse pounding.

I have no idea what I’m about to walk into.

Maybe she’ll slam the door in my face.

Maybe she’ll cry.

Maybe she’ll scream.

I’ll take all of it.

Because loving her means taking the bad with the good.

And if I have to fight like hell to remind her that she’s never been a burden to me—then that’s what I’ll do.

I climb out of the car and head for the porch, heart in my throat, fists balled at my sides.

Because I didn’t come this far just to let her go.

I came to bring her home.