"Hey, this is Jordan Porter. I can't get to my phone right now. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you when I can…beep."

"Hey, it's me," I whispered into the phone. "I was just wondering what time you were coming home tonight?" Tucking my feet beneath me, I leaned back against the couch and closed my eyes. "We're going to have to talk about this because– beep – I'm lonely," I whispered before ending the call and tossing my phone down beside me.

Two weeks had passed since our fight, and nothing had been resolved.

Jordan was still freezing me out, still keeping me at arm's length, and I still felt like I was slowly dying inside. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

Every day that passed caused the hope inside of my heart that we could somehow persevere and get past this to flicker and fade.

The doorbell sounded then, loud and obnoxious, cutting through my aching thoughts.

I didn’t have to get up to know who was at our door.

Another freaking one of his sober prodigies no doubt.

This house seemed to have a revolving door for broken humans. Jordan was a substance abuse and a victims of sexual abuse counselor, and apparently a pretty damn good one. He healed people. He made them feel better. But he couldn’t heal the rift that was growing in our marriage. He couldn’t heal himself. See, he was good and pure and brilliant. I was a professional liar, paid to invent fiction, while my husband went out in the world and make it a better place. I felt both inferior and insecure around him now. His goodness shone bright and brought to light the ugliness inside of me.

Maybe I had been naïve in thinking Jordan and I were beginning to make progress before, but that naivety was certainly gone now.

The progress we had been making was fading fast, disappearing at a rapid rate every time one of my many calls went unanswered, and every night I went to bed alone.

I was trying to do what Annabelle said, and give him space to work whatever problem he was having out on his own, but it was hard when I felt more and more isolated.

I didn’t belong in this house, I never really had, and now with this ridge between us, I felt even more alien here.

The doorbell rang again and I bit back the urge to scream, "Fuck off" at the top of my lungs. Knowing that whoever was on the other side of the door would know there was someone in here was exactly why my pajama clad ass remained on the couch with my mouth firmly shut.

The ringing doorbell was replaced with window banging and I groaned into my hands.

Jesus…

"You do realize I can see you in there," a familiar voice called out from the nearby window, causing me to balk and my heart to jackknife in my chest.

My gaze went straight to the bay window, and sure enough, there he was, standing in the driveway with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Hunter?" Springing to my feet, I walked over to the window and gaped out at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I've had an epiphany," he called back, eyes locked on me through the glass.

"An epiphany?" I shook my head in confusion. "About what?"

"About your book," he replied, smirking.

"My book?" I squeaked.

"Yeah, I know where you're falling flat," he shot back. "So, go and get your laptop, planner, and all those stickers and scented markers you need when you're writing and let's go."

"Go?" I gaped at him. "Go where?"

"Home," Hunter told me, blue eyes piercing through the glass between us as they bore into mine.

"Home," I repeated, whispering the word almost longingly. I cast a glance around the living room before turning my attention back to the man outside my window.

Peace settled inside of me then. A thick cloak of comfort washed over me as I stared back at him. There was no judgment in those blue eyes, no anger, resentment, or pain. All I could see when I looked into his eyes was… unconditional acceptance.

I wanted the friendship this man was offering to me.

I wanted to be that carefree version of myself when I was around him.

Texting him had changed something inside of me. It was like I had made a monumental decision about my future and I had decided that I wanted him in it.

"Okay," I whispered, nodding. "I'm coming."

* * *

Lucky

"When did you do all this?" Hope gasped as she knelt over the coffee table in South Peak Road and gazed down at the countless pages and sticky-notes cluttering the table.

"Last night," I replied, sinking down on the couch behind her.

"Hunter…" she whispered as she read each note filled page with a look of pure awe etched on her face. "This must have taken you days."

It had.

I'd spent every night for the entire fucking week sitting at the kitchen table scribbling down ideas and notions for her WIP.

"It's no big deal," I assured her. I wasn’t getting any sleep anyways. Not when every time I closed my eyes, I thought of her all alone in that fucking house. She was worried about so damn much, and most of it I couldn’t help her with. But the book? The book I could try and help. "It's probably all bullshit," I added, thinking about the crazy fucking ideas I'd had for her characters and the overly dramatic plot twists I'd invented in my sleep-deprived state. "But I thought you could use some of the ideas."

"Use some of them?" Hope whistled. "You're a fucking genius." She spun around to face me then. "I'm so impressed."

The excitement in her voice made me laugh. "I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks, HC."

"You have a wonderful flair for creative writing," she urged, shaking one of the sheets of paper with my scrawled handwriting on it.

No, I have a flair for you "Do you think you can work with any of it?" I said instead, knowing full well that if I laid my cards on the table now, she'd run. Hope had just decided to give us a shot at being friends. That was huge for her. I had to be patient and not fuck this up for myself, because in all honesty, if being her friend was all I could have, then I'd gladly take it.

"Yes!" she gushed excitedly as she dragged her laptop out of its protective sleeve and flipped it open on the table. "I actually want to write."