I held the picture and studied it, no idea why. No idea why I was in the fucking apartment and no idea why I gave a shit about Lara and the drama in her life. Then again, this wasn’t just some bullshit drama, was it? The fucking guy cheated on Lara and got the other woman pregnant. Then he fell in love with the woman and took off to be with her.

That was nasty.

I flipped the picture upside down and left it on the table. I didn’t look back at the hallway or the bedroom door. I didn’t need to see the rest of the pictures of Lara and the guy who crushed her heart. Her friends probably didn’t get why she kept the pictures up. They didn’t get why she couldn’t just move on. But I got it. I totally fucking got it. Because one day someone you love is there and the next they aren’t. It’s not a breakdown of a relationship, feelings crumbling, burning into ash, and then walking away. It’s the sudden jolt of someone ripped away.

The apartment was dark and quiet. Sort of like the cabin. Except I wasn’t on the mountain. I wasn’t near the woods. I wasn’t near the spot. It left me jittery, feeling like I was going to miss my chance.

At the sliding glass door to a small metal deck, I opened the door, reminding myself there was no fucking chance. It was all over. It had been over for a long time.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, looking out at the other apartment buildings, the cars parked everywhere, the lights across the parking lot, dumpsters in the corner. If I looked far enough I could see more lights. Streetlights. Traffic lights turning red to green to yellow back to red. Brake lights of cars. Headlights of cars. The glow of fast food restaurants still open hoping to get those midnight (or later) customers.

So far from what I was used to.

My hands slipped over the metal railing and I thought about what it all meant. I went to help Lara in the bar. Without even thinking, I went to help her. To save her from starting a fight she’d regret. And now I was in her apartment, knowing I was going to spend the night to make sure she didn’t get sick.

And the really fucked-up part?

I was already thinking about what I could make her for breakfast.

* * *

I made coffee.

I had a cup without her.

I sat at her dining room table. The table where she sat with another guy and had who knows how many breakfasts, lunches, conversations. Shit, maybe he fucked her right here on the table.

For whatever reason, it all bothered me.

I took out my phone and did something I hadn’t done in a while. I looked at pictures. Everyone told me I needed to upgrade my phone and join the current century, but why? I had no use for a fucking phone. The only reason I kept the one I had was because of her. So I could look at pictures. At texts. Of a time when I thought I had it all figured out. When my phone was as important as breathing. I’d hold the damn thing tight, protecting it like it was my dick.

My thumb moved down the screen and pictures flew right by. I turned the screen off before I could see her face.

I wasn’t going down that fucking road right now.

I dropped the phone on the table and went to the kitchen. I opened the fridge and it was slim pickings. I laughed. I figured women would keep their fridges stocked. Not Lara. She had half a dozen eggs in a built-in tray on the door. A bottle of ketchup. Some barbecue sauce, a half empty jar of pickles, and a bottle of aloe vera. There was a container of orange juice, some milk, some almond milk (why the fuck would she drink that shit for?), and a few containers of old takeout food. The crisper drawers had some lettuce and tomatoes, and the one on the right had a package of bacon.

I grabbed for the eggs and the bacon.

I navigated the small apartment kitchen and found a pan big enough to cook the eggs and bacon together. That was the trick. Cook the eggs in the bacon grease. It made the whites crispy and made the yolks even creamier.

A little mountain man knowledge.

As I cooked breakfast for a woman I didn’t really know, standing in her fucking apartment, too far from my cabin for my own good, that woman appeared a few feet away. Her hair was a hot mess of uncomfortable sleep and there was regret in her eyes.

She held out her hand. “Can you open this?”

A bottle of pills.

I smiled.

“If I touch these are you going to accuse me of poisoning you?”

“Funny,” she said.

“Have some coffee. Grease is next. It’ll help.”

She looked at the stove and swallowed hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This… this is a first for me.”

“What? A stranger making you breakfast after a one night stand?”

Her eyes went wide. “We…”

“No,” I said.

“But I told you…”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

I opened the childproof lid of the pills.

“Lara, what’s a first for you?” I asked.

She dumped a handful of pills on the counter. I carefully watched as she put all but two back into the container.

“A guy making me breakfast,” she said.

“Really?”

She looked back. “Really.”

I didn’t say anything else.

I held my comments in.

What kind of man didn’t have the fucking balls to make his woman breakfast once in a while? Shit, if I could have just one more day with her, I’d cook every fucking meal she’d ever want.

I turned the burner off and started opening cabinets, looking for plates.

“To the right,” Lara said.

“Thanks,” I said.

She sat at the table with black coffee and white pills.

“He posted a picture of him making her breakfast in bed,” Lara said. “More than once. When she was so tired from being up with the baby.”

I looked at Lara. “I’m really sorry. You know there’s nothing else I can say but that.”

“I know,” Lara said. “But you sort of get it, Syi. You don’t judge me. You don’t have that look in your eyes.”

“What look is that?”

“That I’m pathetic,” Lara said. “That I’m a fucked-up mess. That I fucked up my life because a guy left me.”

I walked a plate of food to the table. “I have my own fucked-up problems to deal with. Your life is yours, sugar. I shouldn’t even fucking be here right now.”

Lara grabbed for my hand. “But you’re here. Why?”

I didn’t quite have an answer, and anything I said to Lara would play into a set of emotions inside her that were already most beaten down.

I pulled my hand away.

I walked away and went into the bathroom.

I splashed water on my face, trying to calm myself down a little. Lara wanted a story that she wasn’t ready to deal with. We’d bumped into each other a few times and that was it. I couldn’t save her from herself for the way she handled her feelings for that guy. And Lara would never help me with what I was going through.

Looking in the mirror, the stranger looked like even more of a stranger. That’s what each day did to me. It was another day away from her.

Curling my lip, I decided to get the hell out of there. Go back up the mountain. Call Jerry. Go do some work. I needed to work off the pent up feelings inside me.

Because if I stayed too close to Lara, something was going to happen.

I opened the bathroom door and turned to find Lara sitting at the table where I left her.

Only she was holding my phone in her hand…

* * *

“What the fuck?” I growled.

Lara dropped my phone and looked back. “Sorry. Your phone went off like three times in a row. Someone named Michelle text you. About Adley?”

“That’s not your fucking business, sugar,” I growled.

I ran to the table and grabbed the phone. I pressed a button and the screen unlocked. Instead of going to the text messages, it opened what I had open last. Pictures. A picture of her. Sitting on a rock in the woods. Wind pulling her hair across her face. She was smiling, that big ass smile that made everything okay in my dark world.

I looked at Lara. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean… it was habit, Syi. I swear. I wasn’t snooping.”

“You don’t get to do this,” I said. “Ever.”

I saw the look in her eyes.

Who was Michelle? Who was Adley?

Another message popped up.

It was from Michelle.

Adley made you something. She’s asking about you, Syi. I don’t know what to tell her. Dane will kill me if he knows I’m texting you.

I turned the screen off and slipped the phone into my pocket.

The messages never stopped.

They never fucking stopped.

Everyday I’d get messages. Asking how I was. Where I was. If someone could come visit. If I was ready to get back to the grind. Asking for advice on a project. Wanting to talk about pricing, contracts, whatever.

Nobody understood it.

I wasn’t the same Osiris. I wished I could peel the ink off my arms and off my chest. Strip myself of that old life and have some new skin. No ink. No scars. No pain.

“Shit, Syi,” Lara said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll pretend I didn’t see a thing. Okay? I’m not going to ask a thing. I’m not going to judge you. I promise.”

I looked down at her.

I didn’t say a word. Anything I said then would have been venomous. Something I wouldn’t have been able to take back.

After a few seconds, I leaned down. “You think you’re the only one, Lara?”

That was all I had to say.

“Syi, please,” Lara said. “I didn’t mean…”

I stopped at her door. “You did mean. You want to know about me because you want to know I’m just like you. You want to know that I’m in pain. You want to know. You want to know if my heart has been shattered. Because looking at yourself in the mirror pisses you off.”

Silence.

I looked back at her as she stood just a few feet away. Tears filling her pretty eyes.

But they weren’t my tears. I didn’t cause them. And as pretty as her eyes were, they weren’t my responsibility. All I had been doing was walking in the woods to find what I lost. Except I found her. I found Lara.

I opened the door and left her apartment without another word.

Finding Lara wasn’t the goddamn problem.

Getting her out of my goddamn mind - and heart - was.