As insane as the road trip had been, it stopped mattering within moments.

One second, everything was high intensity, and Luke’s warm hands on my body, and cold shoulder when we weren’t touching, and then—he was driving away with only a terse goodnight between us.

It had been four days since that night, and I hadn’t heard a thing from Luke.

He hadn’t even come in to work.

Luke never missed work; he had perfect attendance, which was why he was so pissed when he thought that I’d reported him for being late. It wasn’t like the company put five-minute tardies into our files but, fuck, Luke normally acted like it.

But then Monday passed, and no one had even heard from him; he hadn’t even bothered calling.

Tuesday passed, and this time, at least, Tina said that Luke had called and said he wasn’t coming in because of a family emergency.

I asked if it was his grandfather. Tina had frowned and shrugged; she hadn’t bothered asking.

By Wednesday, I was seconds away from pulling my hair out by the roots. I hadn’t shaved, hadn’t eaten, or slept, or done a bit of work since we came back. I couldn’t—every time I tried to do something normal, it felt wrong.

I was wrong.

Luke had ruined me, and now he didn’t even have the decency to show up to work for me to be mad at.

Thursday after work, I still hadn’t heard heard from him. He hadn’t come into work or replied to my texts. I had only sent two—

Is everyone okay?

And: Can we talk?

He had read both. Normally, leaving me on read would have me making a pithy joke about him being a basic Scorpio bitch, but now—with how we'd left things—

I felt sick to my stomach every time I thought about it.

He owed it to me to tell me that everyone was at least alive, didn’t he? Fuck him; he knew I cared. Could have cared. Did care.

It was semantics—I was worried. I wanted to tell him that I cared. He wouldn’t pick up the phone.

I thought about asking Harris to call him in, so I could just have a second. But then I remembered his face when he'd found out that I hadn’t overnighted the package, when he’d thought I was manipulating him, and forced the idea away. Good intentions and whatnot.

And I owed it to him to promise that nothing bad would happen. I knew he didn’t believe that my relationship to Harris didn’t affect my job here, but he had honestly thought I was sabotaging him. I had to make sure he knew that when he came back to work, there would be a job waiting for him.

I waited until work ended on Thursday before driving over to his apartment. The ugly blue truck was parked there, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I made it all the way to the door before I realized I had no fucking idea which apartment was his.

“Please be a giant fucking nerd,” I prayed, reading through the list of tenants with buzzers.

And, like the insane rule-follower that Luke was, there was a Wilson, L listed on the box. I quickly tapped the buzzer a few times.

At first, no one answered. I did it again and again until he finally did.

“Fuck yeah,” I muttered under my breath. I looked at the apartment number again—5B—and then went inside.

I took the stairs two at a time.

When I made it to 5B, I knocked hard and then started to panic.

What the fuck was I doing? Luke didn’t want to talk to me. And I was here to—what? Say hi? How was he even going to take me saying that his job was fine? The guy was a paranoid nutcase; he would probably take that as a threat.

This was a horrible idea.

I turned to leave.

The apartment door opened. I froze.

“Uh, hey?”

I turned around slowly. It wasn’t Luke. Relief filled me. “Oh, sorry. Wrong apartment.”

“No worries—” The guy stopped, narrowing his eyes. “You look familiar.”

“I’m not,” I said quickly.

He cocked his eyes. “No, yeah, I definitely know you.”

I shook my head quickly and started back toward the stairs. “Nope! Stranger. Wrong door.”

“You’re—holy shit! You’re Max, right? From college? Luke’s Max?”

My whole body thrummed like I had been electrocuted. Slowly, I repeated, “Luke’s Max?”

The guy laughed, snapping his fingers. “Yeah, that’s you. Arch nemesis life ruiner, right?”

There was a pang of hurt, but I brushed it off. “That’s me.”

“Ah, awesome.” The guy was still grinning. “I’m Nick, Luke’s roommate.”

“Um. Hey?”

“Hey.” The guy looked around the hallway and asked, “You looking for Luke?”

I wondered if it would be too weird to say no. I shrugged indifferently.

He nodded, as if that made sense. “He’s at the hospital. The one on the corner of Brand and King? If you need to see him.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t need to see him. It wasn’t important. And it was a bad idea.

I thanked him and practically ran away. I made it back to my car with my heart slamming in my chest.

Then I drove to the hospital.

This was crazy. I was going all the way to the hospital, where he was with his ailing grandparents, and going to do what? Ask him when he’s coming back to work?

I groaned. I got out of the car anyway, and went to the front of the hospital. I paced by the benches, trying to work up the courage to make a fucking decision.

Luke came outside before I managed to move one way or the other.

He froze. The older woman at his side, with a huge pool of hair tied on the top of her head, kept walking for a second before looking back at him, frowning.

My mouth felt too dry. I didn’t know what to do.

“Max?” Luke took a step forward. He stopped. He looked between me and his grandma, eyes wide.

I swallowed hard. “Um, hey.”

“Luke? Who is this?” His grandma placed her hand on Luke’s arm, drawing his full attention. His face was ashen.

Luke took a long pause, just looking at his grandmother, before he stood straight and turned. He looked at me in the eye, his mouth a sharp, firm line, and shrugged. “No one. Just someone from work.”

It was a punch to the chest. I couldn’t breathe. I nodded, too rapidly, feeling my breath starting to go too fast in my lungs as the ache I had been barely keeping at bay started to spread all through my body.

His grandmother frowned at me. “Oh. It’s nice to meet you.”

I wanted to scream; cry. I plastered a polite smile on my face. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

Luke grabbed her by the shoulder and led her away from me. I could hear them talking quietly as they moved past me to the parking lot.

I couldn’t move. My feet were frozen against the concrete beneath me.

I knew this had been a bad idea, but I had still—

Fuck it. It didn’t matter.

Luke had been nothing but a quiet annoyance, a workplace amusement, for years, and what? A few good lays, and now I was all heartbroken over him? A closet case who was too afraid to tell his grandma who he really was, even if it meant he could, I don’t know, actually be happy?

He was a messy, dramatic bitch, and I was better off away from him.

Except even thinking the regular, casual joke that had been a running gag about Luke for years hurt now.

There were rumors that Spectrum was opening a new branch on the East Coast. Maybe I could see if Harris would transfer me there.

Sure, I’d miss Stella, but how hard would it be to convince her to move with me? The girl spent half her time in London anyway. And, yes, it would throw a wrench in my weekly dinners with Mom, and I actually really liked that burger place by my apartment, but—

Fuck. At least in Boston, my chest wouldn’t feel like this.

Eventually, I managed to get my feet unstuck and make it back to my car.

Fuck him. Fuck him, and fuck that dumb part of my chest that felt like it was caving in. Fuck the week we’d spent together, and the part of me that had thought maybe it meant more—the part of me that had thought maybe, this time, this guy, was worth moving on for.

Fuck Luke.