I built him up in my head the way I always do, turning a stranger into a story.
But this story was fiction.
I'm done building men up into more than they really are.
I drive home with the windows down, warm evening air rushing through the cab. I need the noise. I need something louder than the ache sitting inside my chest.
Inside my apartment, I drop my bag, and stand in my kitchen. It’s stuffy from being closed up all day, so I crank open the window over the sink.
It’s the same quiet summer night, except now it sounds different. Emptier.
I stare at the counter where I set my keys and think about Saturday…how I stood in this exact spot, barefoot and grinning, replaying every word he said.
And how positive I was that he'd call.
My phone buzzes. It's Imogen.
Wine tomorrow night? My place? No pressure, but also…a little pressure.
K. We’ll need the big glasses.
You got it, babe.
Then I pour myself some water, because alcohol on a Monday would be admitting defeat, and I refuse to let Dean Archer drive me to solo weeknight drinking.
Dean Archer. Not Tom.
Even his real name sounds like someone from a movie—a character a woman falls for right before he breaks her heart, and the audience saw it coming before she did.
I pull my ponytail out and let my hair down, then look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I’m the same girl who keeps opening her heart for men who are just passing through.
But not this time.
This time, the heart closes back up.
He can show up to work every day. He can be polite, helpful, and whatever Connor needs him to be. He can be the best damn crew member Timber Run has ever seen. I don't care. Because the woman he met at that bar, the one who laughed and shared too much and had amazing sex with a stranger in the backseat of a truck thinking the universe was finally being kind to her?
She's gone.
Dean gets the no-nonsense ice queen now. He gets the Kaylee who is pleasant, but absolutely unreachable, and if that kills him even half as much as his silence killed me, then good.
Good.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and get into bed.
I can do this. I'm good at pretending things don't bother me. It's literally in my job description.
But as I lie there in the dark, listening to the crickets through the open window, I can't quite stop my traitorous brain from replaying one specific moment: the look on his face whenConnor said my name….how Dean’s entire body went still, as if the ground had shifted under him.
That wasn't the face of a man who didn't care.
And that's the problem.
Because if he doesn't care, I can hate him cleanly and be done with it. But if he does care—if that night meant something to him too—then I’m up shit creek.
I want to be angry. Anger is simple. Anger is safe. Anger doesn't make you check your phone at three in the morning hoping for a call that never comes.
Go to sleep, Kaylee.