Heath was a man who left notes. Because he was also the man who had an alarm clock directly in the middle of the bedside table, despite the fact he woke automatically at dawn. Well, he had before. I assumed that something they took such trouble to drum into you at basic training was something that was hard to shake.
And that’s because who Heath was.
He wasn’t as ordered or groomed on the outside as he had been in the Marines, but his apartment told me he still was on the inside.
Hence me looking for the note.
There was no note in the bedroom.
I padded into the kitchen, guessing it might be tacked on the naked fridge. But that didn’t even have magnets to pin it on.
Who the heck didn’t have fridge magnets?
The counter was clean, wiped down, mail stacked neatly to one side.
Again, no note.
That uncomfortable feeling settled in my stomach as I snatched my purse from the sofa I’d dumped it on last night.
I scrolled through my numerous messages and voicemails. Something that was the norm for me since none of my friends operated on the same timeline.
Nothing from Heath.
I sucked in a breath.
Was he doing it again? Was this his final revenge for everything I’d done to him? To use my body and soul and leave me the next morning without a goodbye, without anything?
I deserved it.
But Heath wasn’t that man. To do such nasty things.
Craig was that man.
Heath wasn’t one to act. Last night couldn’t have been an act, what we’d shared. It was too bone shaking. Too visceral.
Craig was the one who perfected acts.
But then again, Heath had perfected the hatred toward me since I’d been back.
I couldn’t even call him.
Because I didn’t have his freaking number. I’d had it before I met Craig. In one of our many arguments about us, he’d snatched my phone, programmed his number into it and demand I use it “when I got my shit together.”
I would lie in bed at three in the morning after hours of staring at that number, wishing I could get my shit together and press call.
You’d think I would’ve memorized it by now.
Heath would’ve had the same number. Because Heath was not like me and did not lose phones at least once a month. So even if I hadn’t deleted his number when Craig and I had gotten engaged, I wouldn’t have the same phone to call him on. I could’ve called Lucy or Keltan to ask for it. But then of course, they’d realize what me asking for his number would mean and they’d make a big thing of it.
And it was a big thing.
I hoped the biggest of all things.
But I wanted to keep it small for as long as I could. Small enough to hold onto. Treasure. Keep to myself.
I stood in the middle of Heath’s living room holding my phone and my heart. I really hoped that the latter wasn’t going to get broken again.
Chapter Fourteen
Heath
He had left her. Without a note. Without waking her up.
He’d done so because she was dead to the world, she hadn’t even exhaled roughly when he moved her off him. Fuck, he loved that. The way she clung to every inch of him in her sleep. No way in fuck would he classify himself as a ‘cuddler.’ Ever. But he found that Polly attached to him, sleeping deep and peacefully—something he knew was rare for her—was something more than cuddling.
It was fucking everything.
Knowing how little sleep she got, seeing how finally at peace she was in his arms was what made him not wake her up. Fuck, it had almost stopped him getting out of bed at all. But this was their morning. This was a fresh fucking morning.
A fresh fucking start.
Yeah, there was shit to sort.
A lot of shit.
Because clean slates were well and good in practice, but they didn’t work in reality. And he wanted them to be in reality. Not some fantasy where they could go on from everything they’d been through without mentioning it.
Heath didn’t want to mention it.
He didn’t want to even think about her marrying another man. Building a life with him. Then breaking it apart.
He hated the thought of her with someone else. So bad he wanted to rip the skin from his body.
But what he hated more than that was the thought of her in any kind of pain. And that’s what got him through when she’d actually married the fucker. That she wasn’t in pain. That she was with someone else. Happy. It killed him that it wasn’t with him, but he could breathe knowing she was happy.
But when it ended, he hadn’t felt relief, not immediately. He felt dread, utter bone-deep dread at the thought of Polly going through pain. Because she put her whole heart into everything she did. And he knew that whatever everyone else thought, she wouldn’t jump out of marriage as soon as she jumped in for no good reason.
And a good reason involved a fuck load of pain for her.
Then he’d turned cruel and bitter and contributed to that pain. He hurt her because he was hurt himself and he didn’t deal with that shit well. Or at all.
Then that kiss.
That fucking kiss.
Every kiss with her was spectacular. Beyond anything. But every single one was something different. Because it meant so much more than a kiss. Ever since the first time she’d pressed her lips against his.
“I just wanted to see what it was like to kiss you.”
The open honesty, the beauty of it hit him in the cock and chest cavity simultaneously. And he knew then, in that shitty bar, in what he thought was going to be a shitty night—a shitty three days—that he’d found her.
Her in the sunflower dress and fucking pigtails.
Far too young for him.
Too good.
Too naive.
But he took her anyway because he’d known he couldn’t have her forever, even if that’s what he itched for. She was it. She was fucking his. And he wouldn’t be able to have her. So he’d been greedy, needing to have as long as he could to carry him through the years.
That’s why he reacted the way he did when he saw her again.
Like a fucking crazy person. Trying to claim her like the years hadn’t passed. Because to him, they hadn’t. She was still his. She was still it.
He wouldn’t have come on like he did had he not seen it on her too. Because she wore her heart in her eyes, in the effort she put into hiding things from her sister. He saw that she wanted him too. And as a man who’d made an art out of controlling everything in his life, the fact he couldn’t control the one thing that mattered drove him crazy.
So instead of being gentle, trying to see where she was coming from, he treated it like a battle, a war, reasoning he’d get through to her and then get her.
He’d tried to use a battle to get the girl who lived for peace.
He was a fucking idiot.
And he shouldn’t have been surprised when she had another man. One that he hated instantly on principal and also because there was something off about him. But then he’d searched for evidence, a shred of it to give him a solid reason to kill the fucker. He knew Lucy and Rosie were doing the same. No one found anything.
And Polly had her heart set on this. No, she had her mind set on it. He saw that. So he had to step aside. Let her work through it.
He hated it, but he’d gotten it.
He did not expect her to fucking marry the fucker. For him to push her that far away. Yeah, that fucked him up. He wanted to hate her just so he could stop wanting her.