That’s what they all say.
Me
At least HE communicates.
We ended up at this new bar in The Valley. And because the universe loves drama, guess whose bike was parked out front? Not that I was looking. Not that I’d memorised his exact Harley. Not that I’d spent all day thinking about him, wondering why he couldn’t send even just one text after I saw him with the blonde this morning.
The live band was belting out an AC/DC cover that made the walls shake when we walked in. The guitarist was absolutely shredding “Back in Black”, a song I only knew thanks to my dad’s obsession with classic Aussie rock and his conviction that no child of his would grow up musically ignorant.
I registered two things simultaneously: Jake at the bar with his mates, and the blonde sitting next to him. My heart did this stupid thing where it tried to climb into my throat while also dropping into my stomach.
Oh, and let’s not forget I was still wearing the same “I code like a girl, try to keep up” shirt from this morning. I’d attempted some minor hair triage before heading out—read: I yanked the bun higher, finger-fluffed some strands, and hoped for the best. But it was still giving “woke up in a panic and debugged my feelings all day” energy. Meanwhile, she looked like a biker babe sipping vodka with her biker entourage.
I focused very hard on what Chris was saying about blockchain integration (seriously, why are DevOps guys obsessed with crypto?) while being acutely aware of eyes burning into me from across the room. I’d met Jake’s gaze for a moment when I walked in, just long enough to feel it burn like a touch, and I hadn’t looked back since. He’d lost the right to those looks somewhere between ignoring my texts for three days and riding off with the blonde this morning.
The band shifted to a Guns N Roses song, and Chris’s face lit up. “Want to dance?”
My first instinct was no. But then I caught a glimpse of the blonde touching Jake’s arm again, and a sharp painful feeling twisted in my chest, an emotion I wasn’t ready to name because naming it would make it real. “Sure.”
Chris turned out to be a terrible dancer, but I didn’t care. The music was good, and for a moment I let myself forget about everything except the rhythm. Until a presence behind me made every nerve ending in my body light up.
“Mind if I cut in?” Jake’s voice was quiet thunder and warning bells. He asked like a man who never asked twice. Life refusal wasn’t even on the table.
Chris took a step back. “We were just?—”
“Leaving.” Jake didn’t even look at him. His eyes were fixed on me, dark with something that made heat pool low in my belly. “Aren’t you, mate?”
Chris looked like he wanted to argue, but one glance at Jake’s face and he was convinced otherwise. With an awkward smile at me, he said, “Right. Yeah. I’ll, uh, see you Monday.”
He vanished into the crowd like a man who’d just escaped a bar fight he didn’t sign up for.
I should have been annoyed at Jake’s high-handedness. Instead, I was torn between wanting to shove him and kiss him, between the need to scream and the need to feel his hands on me again. My body was a traitor. My heart was an idiot. And my pride was hanging by a thread, eyeing the self-destruct button.
“You don’t get to disappear for days and then act like this.”
He clenched his jaw. “Eden.”
“Three days, Jake. Three days of nothing. Not even a text update.”
A look of regret flashed in his eyes as his hands settled on my hips, drawing me closer despite my resistance. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s it? You’re sorry?”
“I should have texted.”
One of his hands slipped beneath the loose hem of my half-tucked shirt and his fingers brushed my skin like he had every right to. Like he hadn’t ghosted me. I hated how his touch messed with my determination to make him understand how he’d made me feel. How easy it would be to lean in, let go, and lose myself in him.
“I’ve been out of town and just got back this morning,” he said as his thumb traced circles over my skin. “But you’re right, I should have let you know.”
“Yes, you should have. And maybe you should explain why that blonde keeps touching you every time I see her.”
My voice didn’t waver, surprising me. This wasn’t the usual Eden, the one who let Tony from my last job give vague excuses about why he was accessing my work at 2 a.m., or who accepted Mark from UX’s flimsy explanation about why he presented my code as his own work. The Eden who always swallowed her doubts because making waves felt harder than pretending everything was fine.
No, this was someone new. Someone who’d spent too many nights updating spreadsheets tracking men’s dodgy behaviour while telling herself she was probably just being paranoid. Someone who’d finally learned that those instincts she kept ignoring usually turned out to be right.
Jake’s hands stilled on my hips as he frowned. “Sarah?”
“Oh, she has a name. Fantastic.” The sarcasm felt foreign on my tongue, but also strangely satisfying. I was finally saying all the things I usually kept locked in carefully colour-coded cells of my “Reasons I Should Have Spoken Up Sooner” spreadsheet.
