chapter 5
719 Words
She hadn’t meant to stay downstairs.
After that almost-touch, that dream-sick moment where Jason looked at her like he might break just to hold her — she told herself to go upstairs. To put walls back where they'd started to crumble.
But she didn’t move.
Instead, she sat with him in silence until morning light bled through the gallery windows, painting gold across concrete. It was dangerous, that kind of silence. The kind that makes you feel like maybe there’s still a world where you didn’t lose everything.
Then the knock came.
Three short, sharp raps at the door.
Ava froze.
Jason looked at her, suddenly alert.
She moved to the front, heart ticking faster with every step. The gallery wasn’t open yet. No one should’ve been here.
She pulled the door open a crack—
And there he was.
Jordan.
Hair a little longer than she remembered. Button-down open at the collar. That familiar, easy smile. The one she used to trust before she realized how many people smiled like that when they wanted something.
“Wow,” he said. “Still beautiful in the morning, I see.”
Ava’s spine straightened. “Jordan. What are you doing here?”
He lifted a takeaway coffee tray like it was peace offering. “I was in the area. Thought you might still like black with a shot of something sweet.”
Her mouth was suddenly dry. “It’s been a year.”
“Ten months,” he corrected. “But who’s counting?”
Jason stepped into view behind her, silent and unreadable.
Jordan’s smile faltered for half a second. Then, back in place. Plastic and practiced.
“Well,” he said, glancing between them, “didn’t realize you had company.”
Ava felt the tension like heat under her skin. Jason didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
She could feel him watching her.
Could feel Jordan’s gaze too — calculating. Remembering.
She took the coffee, just to have something to hold.
“You didn’t call,” she said.
“You stopped answering.”
Fair enough. But still, something twisted in her chest.
Jordan’s eyes slid to Jason again. “Old friend?”
Elias finally spoke. Low, cool. Dangerous in the way silence before a storm is dangerous.
“Something like that.”
Ava watched Jordan stiffen ever so slightly, and the familiar ache started to crawl up her throat.
Not this. Not again.
Not people circling her like they owned parts of her.
She stepped out from between them, heart pounding. “Thanks for the coffee, Jordan. But I’m working.”
Jordan hesitated. “We could catch up—”
“Not today.”
A long pause.
Then he nodded. “Okay. Another time, maybe.”
He gave Jason one last look. One that said I see you. One that asked what the hell are you doing here without saying a word.
Then he walked away.
The door closed behind him, and the silence that followed was not the same kind of silence from before.
Jason didn’t say anything.
She didn’t either.
Until—
“You dated him,” he said flatly.
Ava set the coffee down without drinking it. “Briefly.”
He crossed his arms. “Looked like more than brief.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You tell him that?”
The question hit like a slap. Sharp. Jealous. Raw.
She turned to him, jaw tight.
“Don’t do that,” she snapped. “Don’t act like you get to ask.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are.” Her voice cracked on the edge of fury. “You left. You left, Jason. You don’t get to be angry.”
He looked away, jaw clenched. “I know.”
Ava exhaled shakily. “But you are anyway.”
“I hate the idea of him touching you.”
The confession was a match dropped into gasoline.
She swallowed hard. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have walked away.”
His eyes found hers — dark, stormlit, desperate.
“I didn’t know I’d still love you this much.”
She stared at him, everything inside her pulled tight like wire.
“I wish that made it easier,” she whispered.
He didn’t move. Neither did she.
And between them, the ghost of Jordan lingered like a warning.
- Writer
