Amber
My heels were laying haphazardly in one corner of the room, like they’d been kicked off in a hurry—or frustration. My phone sat lifeless on the nightstand, screen black, battery dead. I didn’t need to power it on to know I’d missed a hundred texts. My head throbbed like it was filled with cotton and broken glass, and my mouth was dry as sandpaper.
The door creaked open slowly.
And there he was.
Ian stepped in with the kind of careful silence that made my chest tighten. He was holding a glass of water in one hand and two white pills in the other. His hair was disheveled, falling into his eyes in soft waves. There were shadows beneath them, faint bruises that looked like they’d been earned by worry, not sleep.
“Morning,” he said gently, his voice low like he was afraid he might st
