Chapter 38
Chapter 38
~BLAIR
I checked my phone again
No message.
The bag had left my hands hours ago, and I had spent the time since then doing a very poor job of pretending I didn’t care what happened to the food inside it.
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Maybe he threw it out. Maybe he left it sitting on the bench until it went cold. Maybe he took one look at the chicken or seafood boil and decided anything I made with my own hands was automatically suspect. The possibilities were endless and all of them made me feel slightly ridiculous for caring.
I set the phone face down on the counter, then picked it up again thirty seconds later like that would change the screen.
Still nothing.
I had cooked for him because I wanted to. That was the truth I kept circling back to when the more strategic explanations ran out.
The original impulse might have been provocation, but the second trip back to correct the spice level had been for me as much as for him. I wanted someone to actually taste my cooking. I wanted, specifically, for that someone to be Grayson.
My phone buzzed.
I grabbed it so fast I nearly knocked over the water glass beside me. For one bright second the anticipation was embarrassing in its intensity. Then I saw the name on the screen and the feeling collapsed into
irritation.
Chase.
I rolled my eyes and opened the message thread only far enough to confirm I didn’t want to read it. The preview alone was enough.
Blair, can we meet?
I locked the phone.
Meet? Ha! Why would I ever want to meet that asshole after the cruel way he has treated me? Both before and after the relationship.
It buzzed again.
I mean it. I need to talk to you.
Locked. I was not going to give him a second of my time.
And again.
It’s important.
What the hell was his problem? What could be so important that he couldn’t stop messaging my phone?
I let the messages stack unanswered while I moved through the kitchen without purpose, opening cabinets I didn’t need anything from.
Chase did not get to decide that something was important. He had lost that privilege the day he married Sophie without warning and left me to find out through photos. Whatever sudden urgency he was feeling could sit with him.
The phone kept going.
Successfully unlocked!
Please.I’m not trying to fight.I just need five minutes.
Chapter 38
Blair.
Tm serious. I’ll come to you if I have to.
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The desperation leaked through even in text, the pacing of the messages getting shorter and less controlled. I stared at the thread for a long moment, thurnb hovering, the old diner we used to go to after late practices rising uninvited in my mind.
Corner booth. Bad coffee. The place where he used to talk about the league like it was a mountain only he could climb while I listened and quietly moved pieces behind the scenes he never saw.
I should have kept ignoring him.
Instead I typed. The diner on 5th. One hour. Don’t make me regret this.
I sent it before I could revise the decision into something smarter, then set the phone down and exhaled hard through my nose.
Meeting Chase was a complication I did not need. My marriage was already a battlefield, especially now that I actually cared what Grayson was thinking.
Adding my ex and his sudden need to talk felt like inviting a storm into a house that was only just stabilizing.
And yet.
Some unfinished part of the story still pulled me towards him. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the anger. Maybe it was the fact that after weeks of rumors, I was tired of other people controlling every version of events around me. If Chase had something to say, he could say it to my face and then leave. I could decide afterward if it was worth my time even though a part of me already knew the answer to that.
I changed into something normal, tied my hair back, and left before I could talk myself out of it a second time.
The diner looked the same.
Same sticky menus. Same tired waitress who had seen too many versions of other people’s drama to be impressed by any of it. I took the corner booth out of habit and ordered water I didn’t drink, eyes on the door.
Chase arrived four minutes early.
He looked worse than he had at Ethan’s party, almost as though he hadn’t been getting any sleep. That was strange. He never looked like that when he was with me.
When he saw me, something moved across his face. Relief. Guilt. A hunger for a conversation I still wasn’t sure I owed him. Like he couldn’t believe I was actually here.
He slid into the seat across from me.
“You came,” he said.
“You were one message away from sounding like you would die if I didn’t come see you,” I replied. “Say what you need to say. I do not have all day to listen to you.”
He nodded once, hands clasped too tightly on the table, and for the first time since the wedding, I watched Chase search for words like he wasn’t sure they would be enough.
I waited, already half-regretting the decision and refusing to leave until I understood why he had been so desperate to see me.
Chapter 39
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Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.