Chapter 24

• Beau didn’t sleep that night — not with Cade’s quiet words echoing through his chest like the click of a trigger he’d forgotten he’d ever cocked. He sat on the old swing until the bottle went warm between his boots, then paced the hallway like a ghost in a house that never really belonged to him.
• When the hour got so late it felt like dawn was trying to drag him sane again, he found himself standing outside her door — that old scuffed paint, the faded flower sticker from when she was just Bug, seven years old with scraped knees and braids she hated brushing.
• The door was cracked open. It always had been. Cade used to leave it that way when she was sick, so he could peek in. So did her daddy. So did her mama, back when her laugh still hummed through this old hallway.