One strange side effect of Gabe breaking up with me was the effect it had on Rachel. 

She tiptoed around me, making as little noise as possible. I kept finding little gifts in the house—a new mug for my coffee, a new shirt hanging in my closet. But it didn’t feel like sweet kindnesses from a friend. It felt like desperation, and it finally pulled me out of the self-indulgent haze I’d been living in. “Hey,” I said, knocking on her doorframe. “You okay?”

She leaped off her bed. “Are you?” There was panic in her eyes, though I had no idea why. 

“I’m getting there,” I sighed. I shook myself back out of the melancholy. “You’re being jumpy as hell. What’s going on?”

“I want to be sure you’re going to be okay.”

“I’m a big girl, Rachel.”

“Of course I know that, but I thought, after a big change like this, you might want to…maybe you’d go back to your family and—”

It slowly dawned on me what she was worried about. “Rach, I’m not going to move back home again.”

She exhaled a tiny, quick breath. Then the corner of her mouth twitched. “In my church, when a man sends a woman away, she returns to her family. I have to remember that’s not how it’s done out here.”

“Gabe didn’t send me away,” I huffed. “He dumped me.”

Rachel gave me a helpless shrug. “It’s sort of the same thing,” she sighed. A wave of sadness washed over her face and I realized how much about her I still didn’t know. But she mastered it and pulled herself visibly back under control. “Remember,” she said reprovingly. “I was there. Gabe was telling the truth when he said nothing happened. Every time that girl tried to touch him, he pulled away.”

I blinked and stared up at the ceiling. The tears fell anyway. “I know. I believe him. I was only mad for a second, but that second messed everything up.” Rachel gave me a sympathetic shoulder squeeze and I reached up to press my hand on hers. “He just dumped me. Just gave up. I—I never thought he’d let me go so easily.”

Rachel made a sound, but didn’t say anything. 

I shrugged. “I don’t know whether to beg him to take me back or tell him to go fuck himself.” I stood up straighter. “Maybe I’ll flip a coin.”

“Just relax for now,” Rachel said, moving into the kitchen. “I’ll make us some dinner.” She busily opened cupboards, but peered into each one with a frown. “Oh, goodness. We’re out of everything.”

“Okay,” I said, heading over to the door to grab my shoes. “I’ll go do a grocery run.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Rach, you’ve been waiting on me hand and foot this past week. You need a break.”

I grabbed my purse and headed outside, consciously swerving around the Acura and heading to Grim. I assumed Chuck from the garage would be by to pick up his loaner soon. I slid behind Grim’s wheel and started him up, feeling a pang when he started smoothly. Gabe had been so good to me. How could he drop us like that?

In the five minutes it took to get into town, I swung from sadness to anger. Anger at myself for not believing him. For falling back into the old habit of assuming no one noticed me. Anger at him for giving up. Like he’d been looking for a reason to end it, and my foolish jealousy had given him the out he needed. 

That thought struck me like a boot to the chest, doubling me over so that I needed the handle on the shopping cart to stay upright. He’d jumped to the worst-case scenario far too quickly for that to have been the first time he’d thought of it. I stood in the produce section, blinking at a mound of broccoli as everything slowly fell into place. His distance. Going out to bars without me. The stupid risks to piss me off and start a fight. He’d been angling for a way out and like an idiot I’d walked right into it. 

I felt so low that it made sense to see her there, only five feet away from me. Her shining blonde hair, her startlingly pretty face. Of course. Of course Noelle St. Lucia was right here in Royal Groceries almost a week later. Why not?

She stiffened when she became aware of a person staring at her and looked up slowly. Then she executed a perfect double take. “You’re Gabe’s—”

“Not anymore,” I finished for her.

Her mouth fell open like she was about to say something, but she caught herself and looked down. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said formally.

Of all the absurd things that had happened in my life, running into my ex’s famous ex in the produce section of a small-town grocery store had to be the strangest. “What are you doing here?”

She sighed and smiled, and it was so arresting that I almost smiled with her. “I…I didn’t think I’d find him so quickly, so I booked a place for...” She glanced up at me with a new light in her eyes. “You said you guys aren’t together anymore?”

Hot anger spilled into my veins. “Yeah. I hear the same about you guys,” I snapped. 

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That was a bitchy thing to ask.”

I studied her. She was everything I’d ever taught myself to hate and resent, but I couldn’t muster those feelings about her. Not when she looked so sad. As I watched, a tear slipped silently down her cheek and she sniffed. 

I took a deep breath. Then reached into my purse. 

When I handed her the tissue, she seemed startled by it, like she thought I might be handing her a live scorpion or something.

“You need to move on,” I said.

She looked up sharply. “You have no idea what—”

“No, I don’t,” I interrupted. “But I know Gabe, or at least I thought I did. And right now, all I want to do is to tell you to back off because he’s mine, but he’s not. Not anymore. So maybe I’m telling you to move on because I need to do the same thing.”

Noelle nodded and let out a long, angry sigh. “I’m still hanging around here. How pathetic is that? I actually thought maybe I’d run into him here, or maybe one of his brothers.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “It figures I’d run into you.”

I sniffed in amusement. “When I saw you here, I figured it was about right for how my week was going.”

Her smile was tired. “I’m not a bad person, you know. I came here because when he was hurt I was halfway around the world on tour and I couldn’t get away until now. I wanted to come so much sooner. I had visions of helping him, you know? Driving him around.” Her mouth twisted into a leer. “Giving him sponge baths.”

“I did that,” I said, a possessive heat burning in my gut. “I nursed him and helped him and in return he helped me.”

“But now you’re not together anymore?” She sounded genuinely surprised. And more than a little concerned. 

I caught her gaze. “No. But that’s not your fault.” Her shoulders slumped a fraction in relief as I went on. “It’s mine.” I held up my hand. “His and mine together.” I grabbed my cart. “Go live your life now, Noelle. I’m going to do the same.”

As I strode off to finish my shopping, I only looked back on her once. And I was relieved and strangely proud to catch her setting down her empty basket and striding out the door. Of course she’d remembered her umbrella. 

When I got home, Rachel wasn’t there in the kitchen waiting to greet me and take stuff out of my hands. While I was happy she wasn’t hovering over me, worried I was going to leave and stick her with the rent, it was strange that she wasn’t there with the water already boiling for the spaghetti I’d just bought. Rachel was a stickler about having dinner on the table at six. 

“Hey Rach? Want me to start the water?” I called. When there was no answer, I went to her bedroom, wondering if she’d fallen asleep. She’d be pissed if I let her nap this late.

Her door was half closed, but I could hear her voice floating out from behind it. “—never been to a party.” She paused, and I realized she was on the phone. “I’ll definitely feel safe if you and Gabe are there, yeah.”

Was she talking to Beau? Wait. Gabe?

I heard her shift on her bed and froze, but she didn’t come to the door and catch me, so I was free to keep eavesdropping as she went on. “Is he doing—He is? Yeah, she’s been a little bit messed up this week but I think…Right, no, but I definitely want to. You know—” She giggled then and I ached to know what Beau was saying on the other end of the line. “I still haven’t tried every drink on the bar menu!” She laughed, a big full-throated sound I hadn’t heard from her before. “Maybe Gabe would know. I know, but he’d know something about what it would feel like, right? He used to take pills all the time.”

My heart thundered in my ears. Disgust made bile rise into my throat, but I swallowed it back down and forced myself to step away from Rachel’s door. 

I knew she’d been cutting loose, and I didn’t blame her. I knew she felt like she had catching up to do, and I’d trusted that Beau would keep her safe while she did it. She could go to as many parties with him as she wanted, but why was Gabe going too? Bars were one thing, but going to a party where who knew what kind of drugs would be available…

What the fuck was he doing?

Fear made my hands shake. I watched them tremble with the anxiety that was building. Gabe couldn’t go to a party like that. He’d be risking two years of hard work. What was Beau thinking, letting him—

“No,” I said to myself. “This has nothing to do with you.”

I hadn’t realized I said it aloud until Rachel called out from her room. “Everly? How long have you been home?” She appeared at her door looking worried. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“It’s fine,” I said tightly. 

“I’ll go start the water. Thanks for going shopping.”

I pressed my hands into my sides so she wouldn’t see them shaking. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sure? Hey, I’m going out with Beau again tonight. I wanted to let you know.”

“Where are you headed?” I asked, a little too pointedly. 

She caught my tone and got defensive. “Taylor from the Crown is having a fish bake to celebrate the opening of trout season. Beau caught a bunch today and is bringing them over.”

“Sounds wholesome,” I snarked. 

Her eyes hardened. “It’s a party, but Beau is good about helping me know my tolerance.” She pronounced the word carefully, like she still wasn’t used to using it. 

“What else are you going to do?”

“I think that’s it.” She eyed me. “Why? Did you want to come? It’s supposed to be fun. Apparently he does it every year and the whole town comes out—”

“I’m good,” I interrupted. So much had changed in the past few months. There was a time when I would have given anything to be included in something like this. To be noticed and invited. Now the last thing I wanted was to be around a bunch of people while I watched the man I loved and hated in equal measure destroy himself. “You have fun without me,” I told her, and closed my bedroom door to be alone.