When he walked in the house before five, which was as late as he could push it before people started staring at him for sitting around doing nothing at the Lodge, Maddie passed right in front of him on her way to the barstool. Now she sat with her hair up and was reading a book. She didn’t even look up from the pages. No kiss. No warm smile.

Yeah, he’d screwed this up. Big.

He wasn’t a hundred percent sure how to fix his mess but the dragging sadness needed to go. Seeing her, being with her, made him feel lighter and he wanted that sensation back.

“Interested in dinner?” she asked as she turned a page.

“No.”

Something in his tone must have grabbed her attention because her head shot up. “What’s wrong?”

He debated going halfway in. Leaving enough of him outside of her reach to stay whole but letting her have a peek. But then he saw the worry in her eyes and the tension pulling around her mouth. Part of that expression belonged to him. He’d sucked the life out of her and now he had to figure out a way to give it back to her.

He dove in, hoping he found a soft landing. “You’re not Alexis. I get that.”

She closed the book and set it on the kitchen island. “Okay.”

Every part of his brain screamed for him to back out now. Going deep meant going under. He’d experienced that choking feeling. He plowed over it by being in the office when other people were out experiencing life.

“That conversation we had about hiding places? I knew you were at the prison. That you would lead Evan there.” For some reason he needed her to know that he’d gotten the message. That he’d listened and the connection between them had made a difference.

“I actually worried you would come there with a misguided idea of rescuing me and walk straight into danger.” She rolled her eyes. “And you did exactly that.”

The flatness of her voice told him what she thought of that risk. But it was a calculated one. “Ben was there.”

“Are we pretending you don’t have a death wish?”

He didn’t understand the way she saw him. She said things about his life and his reactions that made him think she was looking at another guy. “I don’t.”

“Connor.”

He’d never toyed with not being here. Never experienced a moment so dark that he wanted it to be his last. But he had lost the ability to celebrate things, big or small.