Chapter 16: The Garage

Emmett's POV

The courthouse garage smelled of oil and wet concrete.

I had parked on the second level, three spaces from Tilda's van, with a clear view of its back doors.

She had gone down to the lobby to thank her lawyer and shake the banker's hand.

I told myself I was waiting to drive her home.

That was only half true.

Gavin had left the courtroom first, and he hadn't taken the elevator.

He stood by Tilda's van now with his tie loosened and his hands open at his sides.

I got out of the truck and stayed behind a pillar.

She came out of the stairwell with her coat over her arm, and she stopped when she saw him.

"Til," he said. "Two minutes."

"No."

"I made a mistake. I made several. I let that girl get into my head, and I let the company get into my head, and I hurt you."

His voice was low and wet and exactly right.

It was the voice I had heard across a hundred dinners, the one that made grown men feel they'd misjudged him.

"Come home. Drop all of it. I'll call off Marrow Ridge tonight. We'll start over, the two of us, the way we did in the apartment on Wayne Avenue."

She didn't answer.

I watched her stand there with the coat in her hands.

Ten years of him was in that garage with her, and I knew what ten years does.

I knew she was thinking about the apartment.

I thought, here it is. She'll say yes, and I'll drive home alone.

"Gavin," she said.

"Yes."

"You have never once said you were sorry before you needed something."

"That isn't..."

"The first time was when I found the second phone. You needed me to sign the refinance."

"The second time was my father's funeral. You needed the board."

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