Chapter 13: The Morning After
The diamond cut a tiny, brilliant rainbow into the pale plaster of the ceiling. Heather lay perfectly still, watching it. Michael’s breath was a steady, warm rhythm against the back of her neck, one heavy arm draped possessively over her waist. The silky duvet was tangled around their legs. The room smelled of them—sex, sleep, and the lingering vanilla from her candle.
It was real. The weight of his arm. The unfamiliar bite of metal on her finger. The silence, which felt different now. Not like waiting, but like after.
She shifted slightly. The arm around her tightened, pulling her back flush against him. A low, sleep-rough sound vibrated in his chest. “Mm. Not moving.”
She smiled into the pillow. “I have to pee.”
“Deferred.” He nuzzled the sensitive spot below her ear, his beard scratching in that way she’d come to crave. “Enjoy the moment. It’s the last quiet one we’ll get for a while.”
The words were a gentle splash of cold reality. She twisted in his arms to face him. Morning light etched the weary lines around his eyes, but his gaze was clear, focused on her. “What does ‘a while’ mean?”
He sighed, the contentment leaching from his expression. “Kelly’s picking me up in an hour. We’re driving to Spokane. Creel’s brother surfaced. He’s not as smart, but he’s angrier. Makes him unpredictable.”
“Spokane.” She said it flatly. It was a world away from the warm nest of her bedroom. “How long?”
“As long as it takes. A week? Maybe two.” He saw the protest forming on her lips and pressed a finger to them. “It’s clean-up. The big beast is in a cage. This is just sweeping up the broken glass. Important, but not… not the same stakes.”
She caught his hand, kissing the calloused pad of his finger before interlacing hers with his. The rings clicked together—his plain tungsten band, her new solitaire. “You say that, but broken glass cuts just as deep.”
He didn’t argue. He just looked at their joined hands, his thumb stroking over her knuckle. “I want you to think about what comes next. For us. Not just the wedding. The after. A house, maybe. Somewhere with a yard. No sticky countertops.”
“A dog,” she whispered, the memory of the restaurant a sweet ache.
“A big, lazy one.” He smiled, but it didn’t fully reach his eyes. He was already partly gone, his mind on the interstate, on a motel room, on a man with a brother’ rage. “While I’m gone, look at places. Online. Dream a little.”
“I will.” She leaned in and kissed him, trying to imprint the feeling of his mouth, his smell, the solid reality of him. He kissed her back with a slow, deepening intensity that felt like a vow.
The moment shattered twenty minutes later with the aggressive buzz of his phone on the nightstand. Kelly. He was efficient after that, a man transforming from lover back to instrument. He shaved, the sharp scent of soap cutting through the bedroom’s intimacy. He dressed in the familiar uniform of dark jeans, a simple tee, and the shoulder holster he settled into with a grimace of habit.
She watched from the bed, the sheet pulled to her chest, feeling a sudden, profound vulnerability. The ring felt heavy.
He finished packing a small duffel and came to sit on the edge of the mattress. He didn’t speak. He just cupped her face, his eyes moving over her features as if storing them. “I love you,” he said, the words simple and solid as stone.
“I love you too. Come home.”
A honk sounded from the street below. Two short bursts. Kelly.
He stood, slung his bag over his shoulder. He paused at the bedroom door, a tall silhouette against the bright hallway light. “Look at houses, Heather.”
And then he was gone. The front door clicked shut with a terrible finality.
The apartment exhaled into silence. It was different from the silences when he was just at work. This was an absolute quiet, a vacuum. She got up, padded to the kitchen. The roses were dropping petals, a crimson scatter on the counter like evidence of a crime. She made coffee, the ritual feeling hollow.
She spent the day in a loose sweatshirt of his, the cuffs swallowing her hands. She did look at houses online. Craftsman bungalows with wide porches. Modern boxes with floor-to-ceiling windows. None of them felt real. They were just images on a screen, empty shells waiting for a life she couldn’t quite visualize. Her finger would catch the light from the laptop, the diamond winking, a constant, glittering reminder.
By late afternoon, the silence began to buzz. She opened her tablet, her thumb hovering. An impulse, dark and magnetic, pulled her. She navigated to the magazine’s site. Milo’s article was still there, now with a small “Editor’s Pick” badge next to it.
She read it again. This time, without the shock of the new, she saw the artistry in the cuts. He had carved her into a symbol. A beautiful, resilient, but ultimately flat symbol. He’d captured her light but none of her shadows, none of her messy, choosing heart. It was a masterpiece of careful omission. He’d written the version of her that best served the story. Michael saw the mess and wanted to build a home with it anyway.
The silence in the apartment was a physical weight. Heather stared at the screen until the images of perfect houses blurred into meaningless shapes of beige and grey. The diamond on her finger felt less like a promise and more like a tether, holding her to this spot of aching quiet. She needed noise, movement, anything to disrupt the hollow echo Michael’s departure had left behind.
She jumped when the doorbell rang, a sharp, traditional chime that felt utterly alien in her usually visitor-less world.Kelly? she thought, a spike of fear cutting through her. Did something happen already? She padded to the door, peering through the peephole with one eye.
The figure in the fisheye lens was achingly familiar yet completely wrong. It was Milo’s smirk, Milo’s sharp jawline, but framed by tousled, darker hair and clad in a grey university hoodie. The young man shifted his weight, his expression impatient, a college lanyard dangling from his fingers. Heather’s pulse, which had spiked with fear, now hammered with a confused, electric curiosity.
She unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door a cautious six inches, the chain still engaged. The hallway air was cooler. “Can I help you?”
“Heather Norris?” The voice was deeper than Milo’s, less raspy from whiskey and cigarettes, but the cadence was identical. He smiled, and it was the same disarming, wolfish flash. “I’m Scott. Scott Davidson.”
“Davidson.” The name clicked with terrible, inevitable clarity. The resemblance wasn’t just strong; it was a genetic carbon copy, twenty years younger. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the door. “You’re…”
“Milo’s son.” He finished for her, nodding as if acknowledging a universal truth. “The one he doesn’t talk about. Yeah. Can I come in? This is a little weird to do in a hallway.”
Her mind flashed to the empty apartment behind her, to Michael’s ring on her finger, to the article still glowing on her tablet. Every instinct told her to slam the door. She slid the chain free instead. The metal rattled softly. “Alright. But just for a minute.”
He moved past her with an easy confidence that belied his age, his shoulder lightly brushing hers. He smelled of fresh laundry and faint, clean sweat. He surveyed the living room, his gaze lingering on Michael’s discarded jacket draped over a chair. “Cozy.”
“Why are you here, Scott?” She remained by the door, leaving it slightly ajar. A exit strategy.
“I read his piece.” He turned to face her, hands shoved in his pockets. “The one about you, and the cop, and the whole shooting thing. It was… intense. He doesn’t usually write like that. Not about real people. It got me thinking.”
“About what?”
“About you.” He said it simply, directly. His eyes, the same piercing shade as his father’s, held hers without apology. “I wanted to meet the woman he described. See if she was real, or just another one of his characters.”
A strange heat climbed Heather’s neck. She felt examined, dissected under that gaze. “Well, here I am. Real. Messy kitchen and all.”
“He didn’t mention me at all, did he?” A wry, knowing smile touched his lips. He already knew the answer. “I’m a footnote. A one-night stand from his glory days that had consequences. We email sometimes. He sends money. It’s not a relationship.”
Heather’s mouth was dry. She understood footnotes. She was often one herself. “That sounds familiar.”
Scott nodded, taking a step closer. The space between them crackled. She was acutely aware of his youth, the smooth skin of his throat above the hoodie’s collar, the lean strength in his forearms. The attraction was immediate, visceral, and it horrified her. It felt like a betrayal of Michael, of herself, of every sensible choice she was trying to make.
“Why now?” Her voice sounded husky.
“Because I’m here for a semester,” he said, his tone shifting, becoming more purposeful. “I transferred. My thesis is a comparative analysis of true-crime journalism and its impact on peripheral figures.” He paused, letting the academic jargon hang before his smile returned, more predatory. “You’re a peripheral figure who became central. I’d like to talk to you. Get your perspective, off the record.”
“You want to interview me.” She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Of course you do.”
“I want your help.” He corrected softly. His eyes dropped to her left hand, to the diamond catching the afternoon light from the window. His gaze flicked back to hers, unreadable. “With college. My access to Milo is… limited. You have a direct line. And you’ve lived it. I can buy you a coffee. Or a drink.”
Heather looked from Scott’s expectant face to Michael’s jacket on the chair. She thought of houses with yards and lazy dogs, a future etched in clean, simple lines. Then she looked back at the living, breathing ghost of her worst temptations standing in her living room, offering complication, danger, and a thrill she could feel in her bones. The door behind her was still ajar. The quiet, empty future yawned.
She pushed the door shut with her heel. The click was final. “I don’t drink coffee this late.”
The echo of the door clicking shut seemed to swallow his brief, surprised laugh. “Fair enough,” Scott said, his eyes still mapping her face with an unblinking curiosity that felt more intimate than a touch.
Heather gestured vaguely toward the kitchen, needing to break his line of sight. “Water, then. Or nothing.” Her voice sounded tight, overly formal in the cluttered stillness of her own apartment. She walked away from him, her bare feet silent on the cool floor, and pulled two glasses from the cupboard. The ice cracking from the dispenser was a violent, satisfying sound.
He followed, leaning against the doorway, watching her. “Nothing’s fine. I don’t want to put you out.” He was so much like Milo in his stillness, in the way he occupied space without permission. “So, is that a yes? To helping?”
She placed his glass on the counter with a sharp clink, the water sloshing. Her own she kept, taking a long drink to avoid answering immediately. The cold hurt her teeth. She thought of Michael’s text, probably sent from some bland interstate rest stop by now. Dream a little. This was not the dream. This was the old pattern, wearing a new, younger face.
“I can’t give you access to Milo,” she said finally, meeting his gaze. The diamond on her finger pressed against the cool glass. “That’s his call. But… I can maybe talk about my side of it. Once.”
He pushed off the doorframe, a quick, fluid movement. “That’s all I’m asking.” He reached out, not for the glass, but for her. His hands closed around her upper arms, pulling her into a hug that was too close, too familiar.
She stiffened, her body going rigid. He was all solid muscle and warm cotton hoodie, and he smelled like sunlight and cheap detergent. Her face was pressed awkwardly against his shoulder, her arms trapped at her sides, the glass of water still clutched in one hand, dripping onto the floor. It was an intimate, grateful squeeze that lasted a second too long.
He released her as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, stepping back. A faint, knowing smile played on his lips, as if he’d felt her freeze and catalogued it. “Sorry. Just… thanks. Seriously.” He fished his phone from his pocket, thumb swiping across the screen. “I’ll come by tonight? Around eight? I’ll have my notes.”
Heather nodded, unable to form words. Her skin where he’d touched her felt strangely hot.
“See you then,” he said, and let himself out. The silence he left behind was different from Michael’s. It buzzed.
At 7:58 PM, her knuckles were white where they gripped the back of a chair. She’d changed three times, finally settling on soft, worn jeans and a simple black t-shirt. Something casual, nothing that suggested effort. The roses on the counter had fully given up, their browned petals a sad confetti she hadn’t cleaned.
The knock was confident. She opened the door to find him holding a cheap six-pack of beer and a thick, disorganized folder under his arm. “Housewarming gift,” he said, lifting the beers. His hair was damp, as if he’d just showered.
“It’s not a new house,” she said, but took the beer. She led him to the small dining table, cleared of its usual clutter of mail. “You said notes. That looks like a novel.”
He dropped the folder; it thumped heavily. Pages spilled out—printed articles, handwritten scrawls on legal pad sheets, photocopies of court documents. “It’s a start,” he said, popping the cap off a beer with a key from his pocket and handing it to her. He opened one for himself. “So. You went to State, right?”
The question disarmed her. She took a sip, the beer hoppy and cold. “How’d you know that?”
“LinkedIn.” He shrugged, a very Milo-like gesture. “Recruiter. Impressive. I’m at County Community, for now. The thesis is my transfer ticket.” He flopped into a chair, gesturing at the mess of papers. “I’m arguing that true-crime commodifies trauma, but my advisor says that’s too obvious. I need a sharper angle.”
Heather sat opposite him, drawn in despite herself. This was her language, the mechanics of narrative and presentation. “It is obvious. The angle isn’t the ‘what,’ it’s the ‘how.’ How the framing shifts responsibility. How the language turns people into archetypes—victims, villains, heroes. It’s tidy. Life isn’t tidy.”
Scott’s eyes lit up, a genuine, unguarded excitement that transformed his face. “Yes. Exactly. Like how my father framed you. The resilient survivor. It’s a flattering cage.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What did he get wrong? Not factually. Emotionally.”
And so she talked. She talked about the fear that wasn’t brave, that was just a numb fumbling in the dark. She talked about Lee, not as a heroic kid, but as a terrified boy she used to feed fish-shaped crackers. She talked about the smell of blood, which was like warm copper and wet dirt, not like the sterile smell in hospitals. She didn’t mention Michael. Scott took frantic notes, not on his laptop, but in a battered notebook with a chewed pen.
They opened another beer. The evening light faded into a deep blue gloom outside the window, and she didn’t get up to turn on the lamp. The shared space felt closer, confessional. He told her about his mother, a once-ambitious law student derailed by a single night with a charismatic journalist. He spoke with a detached, analytical clarity that was far older than his years.
“She wanted me to be a lawyer,” he said, finishing his second beer. “A stable profession. I think she wanted to prove to him that her world had structure, merit. Something his didn’t.”
“And you chose his,” Heather said softly.
“I chose the thing that broke her.” He said it without self-pity. It was a simple statement of fact. “Ironic, right?”
She stood to clear the empty bottles, her head pleasantly fuzzy from the alcohol and the unexpected connection. She felt seen, in a way Milo had never intended. She carried the bottles to the kitchen, her back to him.
She didn’t see his gaze drop. She didn’t see the sharp, predatory focus sharpen as he watched the denim stretch taut across her backside.
The academic camaraderie evaporated from his expression, replaced by something simpler, hungrier. He watched the way her shirt pulled across her shoulders as she reached for the cabinet. A low, appreciative sound almost escaped him before he swallowed it back with another pull of beer. “I’m starving.”
“You’re a growing boy,” Heather said, her voice a little tight as she turned around. She caught the tail end of that look. It was a familiar voltage, one she’d spent years trying to avoid plugging into. Her phone felt heavy in her back pocket. She pulled it out, the screen blank. No messages. “I’m ordering Thai. You’re eating.”
The food arrived in grease-spotted paper bags that filled the cluttered kitchen with the scent of lemongrass and chili. They ate straight from the containers, sitting on opposite ends of the sofa with the coffee table a messy buffer between them. He demolished his pad see ew with a voracious appetite that was almost comical. Heather picked at her green curry, the spices a vivid contrast to the flat beer taste still in her mouth.
“He’s a lucky guy,” Scott said suddenly, not looking up from his noodles. He speared a piece of chicken. “Vickers.”
The statement landed in the quiet room like a thrown stone. Heather’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “What makes you say that?”
Scott shrugged, finally glancing up. His eyes were frank, unguarded. “You’re sitting here with a kid talking about trauma theory instead of… I don’t know, planning floral arrangements. You’re interesting. You’re real. You listen.” He took a drink, his gaze holding hers over the rim of the bottle. “My old man’s an idiot. Letting you go was the dumbest thing he ever did, and that’s a competitive category.”
A warm, unwelcome flush crept up her neck. The compliment felt dangerous, a key sliding into a lock she’d thought was rusted shut. She focused on a fleck of rice on the table. “Milo didn’t let me go. There was never anything to hold onto. And Michael… it’s complicated.”
“Seems simple from here.” He put his container down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You wear his ring. You talk about dogs and yards. You light up when you talk about him, even when you’re mad.” He leaned back, spreading his arms along the back of the sofa. “That’s the dream, right? Stability. Safety. A forever kind of guy.”
The words hung in the air between them, a definition of her future that felt both saccharine and suffocating. Heather stared at the half-eaten food, the neon green curry suddenly looking garish under the flickering kitchen bulb. “It is the dream,” she said, her voice quieter than she intended. “Doesn’t mean it’s simple to live inside it.”
Scott just watched her, that unnerving, paternal stillness settling over him again. The empty beer bottle dangled from his fingers. The academic folder was a forgotten island on the coffee table, papers spilling like sedimentary layers of other people’s pain. He placed the bottle down with a soft click.
“Guess not,” he murmured. He didn’t move from his sprawl on the sofa, but his focus tightened, narrowing on her. The space between them, cluttered with cartons and unspoken history, seemed to shrink. The air conditioner kicked on with a rattle, pushing a wave of cold air that raised goosebumps on her arms.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You know what my dad’s never been?”
She didn’t answer. She knew.
“Boring.” He said it like a challenge. “Safe is just boring with better insurance.”
A hot needle of anger pricked her chest. “You don’t know anything about him. Or me.”
“I know you lit up talking about blood and fear and messy truths ten minutes ago. Now you’re talking about lawn care.” He stood up, not aggressively, but with a fluid grace that brought him around the coffee table. He didn’t stop until he was standing right in front of her where she sat on the edge of a chair. Her neck craned to look up at him. “I know which version of you feels more alive.”
He was too close. The lemongrass and chili scent on his clothes mixed with his own clean, young smell. Heather’s heart began a slow, heavy drum against her ribs. Her left hand, resting on her knee, felt the cold weight of the diamond. She should stand up. She should put distance between them.
She didn’t move.
He saw the conflict in her eyes. A faint, triumphant smile touched his lips. He reached out, not for her hand, but to tuck a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. His fingertips brushed her cheek. The touch was electric, a jolt of pure, unauthorized sensation.
He leaned down.
The world narrowed to the space between their mouths. She could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the precise cut of his lips, so like his father’s. Her breath hitched. The rational part of her screamed, a distant siren drowned out by the roaring in her ears.
His lips were a whisper away.
Heather’s hand came up. She didn’t shove him. She placed a single finger firmly against his mouth, feeling the warm give of his lower lip. Her own lips parted, but no sound came out for a second. She swallowed. “Time’s up,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “You should go home, Scott.”
He didn’t pull back. His eyes, dark and amused, held hers over the barrier of her finger. He nodded slowly, as if agreeing to a reasonable request. “Okay,” he breathed.
Then he moved. He dipped his head, bypassing her guarded mouth, and pressed his face into the curve of her neck. His nose nuzzled the sensitive skin below her ear. His breath was hot. At the same moment, his hand came around her waist and cupped her ass through the denim, pulling her slightly forward in the chair with a possessive, practiced firmness.
She gasped, a short, sharp intake of air. A shudder ran through her, half protest, half pure, unadulterated response.
“Yeah,” he murmured into her neck, his voice a low vibration against her skin. “Now I get why he was so interested.”
A choked laugh escaped her, born of equal parts horror and a dark, undeniable thrill. She swatted his hand away from her backside, the slap of her palm against his wrist cracking in the quiet room. “Go. Seriously. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He straightened up, smiling fully now—a wicked, knowing flash of white teeth. He took a deliberate step back, his hands rising in a gesture of surrender. His gaze dragged down her body, lingering on the curve of her hips in the jeans he’d just touched. “Tomorrow, then.” He turned, collected his bulky folder from the table, and walked to the door without looking back. He paused with his hand on the knob, casting one last, long look over his shoulder at her. His eyes scanned her from head to toe, a final, appreciative inventory. Then he was gone, the door shutting softly behind him.
The silence that followed was a physical presence, thick and buzzing. Heather didn’t move from the chair. The ghost of his hand on her ass burned through the fabric. The spot on her neck where his lips hadn’t quite touched tingled. She lifted her own finger, the one she’d pressed to his mouth, and stared at it.
From the kitchen counter, her phone buzzed, lighting up with a generic notification. The screen glowed in the dim room, a flat, blue rectangle of normalcy. Outside, a car door slammed, an engine turning over. She listened to the sound of Scott’s car pulling away, the noise fading until all she could hear was the hum of the refrigerator and the frantic, scrambling beat of her own heart. The ring on her finger caught the faint light, a cold, hard circle of promise.