“You try that shit again,” he growled, “I’m going to chop off your arm.”
The man stammered out something that might have been an apology, but I didn’t really hear it. I was too busy staring at Reid.
It was the first time I really saw him.
Not the quiet guy in the corner. Not the one who blended into the background.
This version.
How had he moved that fast? Before I could even react, he’d already broken the guy’s nose and cleared the entire table out of the bar. They left quickly. Quietly. After throwing down a generous tip.
He didn’t say a single word to me.
But I couldn’t just let it end there.
That was the beginning of my obsession with him.
Later, like confirmation of everything I’d been telling myself not to believe, the bartender mentioned that Reid always left when my shift ended. He didn’t come in on nights I wasn’t working, and he timed his visits around mine.
So yeah.
It looked a lot like he was showing up for me.
I didn’t know what to do with that at first. It scared me. There was something deeply unsettling about someone focusing on you that completely.
No one ever had.
I didn’t know how to handle it, but I also knew how stories like that usually went.
The guy watches you, follows you, protects you. You ignore the warning signs because he’s attractive and intense and makes you feel seen.
You fall for him.
And then the same intensity turns into something else. Control. Possession. Isolation.
And suddenly you have nowhere left to go.
I wasn’t going to let that happen. I might have been young, but I wasn’t naive.
So, one night, I waited outside for him. I told myself I was going to shut it down. Tell him to stop. Tell him I didn’t need him.
It didn’t go the way I expected.
If anything, it made everything worse.
And somehow, even now, out here on this nature walk all these years later, it still ties my stomach in knots.
“There she goes again,” Luke says, snapping me out of it. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“Sorry,” I say, realizing the others on the hike are watching. “Were you saying something?”
“Nothing important.”
“As usual,” Key mutters, earning himself a shove.
“You know, I’d pay good money to hear what’s going on in that head of yours,” Luke says as we start walking again.
“How much?” I ask lightly.