I reluctantly slowed to a stop, breath labored, head pounding with the beginnings of a tension headache. Those didn’t affect me as badly as my migraines did, but working my body too hard less than a day after getting one was the reason why my temples throbbed now. Dropping my hands onto my head, I took giant breaths as I walked past the park on tired legs. The feeling that had fueled my run—regret—ripped through me at the sight of it, chased by a hollow sadness that had me scrubbing a hand down my face.

I was a bastard, telling Eddie and Tabitha this morning that I didn’t have hope we could win this fight when I’d dragged us into it in the first place. When I’d told Rowan that if no one was coming to help us out here, we needed to do it ourselves. Now a kind of help was coming, but it wasn’t the kind this street needed. I was too in my head earlier to offer real ideas, but I’d let my brain churn through every possible solution on my run and I’d still come up with nothing.

As the sun started to set on this shitty day, I was gripped by memories of this place—Tabitha singing in the sunshine next to my neighbors as they cleared the trash. Her cheeky smile every time she brought me food. The way she’d looked behind the camera, telling me I was part of the story too.

Tabitha standing in the street beneath the moonlight with wet hair, pressing her cheek to my chest and holding me tight.

I hadn’t been this low, this angry since that first week after my concussion, when I realized how pissed off my fans and the industry had been at my retirement. Like that same week, I felt backed into a corner now, on the defensive and unable to think clearly. Somewhere around mile three I realized that Tabitha’s advice to me about the Game Time job had been eerily on point. She’d said my tendency to overthink was probably the best way to decide given how dramatically it would change my life.

I’d done the exact fucking opposite. Had shown up to the meeting hot under the collar and impulsive. I hadn’t even stopped by to give Mom and Midge the news in the afternoon. I was too twisted up in knots, too aware of the voice in my head telling me the choice I’d made was a mistake.

Hands on my hips, I walked to my house, casting a sideways glance at Linda’s door the way I had every day since Tabitha had moved in. The lights were off. The house was quiet.

So we’re good, then, right? Tabitha Tyler had me on the ropes, as always, and I’d fought back by throwing up every wall I had.