Not His First Choice Chapter 05
Black pop-up. White text. Sitting dead center on the screen.
He stared for two seconds, then let out a laugh. “For real?”
He tossed the phone face-down on the nightstand.
He didn’t come home the next day. He and Lily went to the track.
Private track day. He pushed his lap times brutal, aggressive. The friend in the passenger seat went pale.
“The hell’s up with you tonight?”
Ethan didn’t answer. His hands stayed steady, savage on the wheel.
Coming out of a turn, the tires kissed the barrier. In that instant, he remembered Nora’s first time in his car.
She’d been gripping the seatbelt, eyes huge. “Ethan, slow down, I’m scared.”
He hadn’t. He’d pushed the gas harder, turned around and laughed at her curled up in her seat.
Back then she’d forgiven him anything.
Later he didn’t need her to. Everything ran on points.
She got mad, he docked her. She wanted something, she had to save.
The rules were his. He always won.
He got back to the apartment past midnight. The moment he pushed the door open, the darkness and silence hit him.
He stood in the entryway a beat, then walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Top shelf: a Tupperware with a sticky note in Nora’s round handwriting.
“Ethan’s sweet-and-sour ribs. Three minutes in the microwave.”
Next to it: “Ethan’s mashed potatoes. Eat tomorrow at lunch.”
He kept going. Every single one said Ethan’s.
He pulled them out one by one, checking dates.
The most recent was a week old.
He put the ribs in the microwave and set three minutes.
He pulled out a piece, put it in his mouth. The meat was dry. The vinegar had turned bitter.
He chewed twice and lost his appetite.
Tipping the container into the trash, he caught a flash of something at the bottom.
The photo of the three of them. The frame was smashed. In it, eighteen-year-old her, small smile, bright eyes.
He crouched, picked it up, turned it over. A single line in ballpoint pen:
“Today they let me stand in the middle! I want to remember this.”
The pen had pressed so hard it had punched through the paper.
A week later.
Ethan sat in his office and opened a familiar social media page.
Nora had started a new public travel account. A few photos.
Sunrise over a salt flat. Wildflowers on a grass slope.
She’d gone to a little town in Colorado called Ridgway.
“Ridgway?” His brows drew together. He fired off a string of messages.
【Nora, are you done? Come back when you’re not pissed anymore.】
【I’ll come pick you up next week.】
Same tone. Certain. Impatient.
A red exclamation mark bloomed next to his message.
She’d blocked him.
Ethan snatched a glass off his desk and hurled it at the floor. Water splashed across the carpet.
He leaned back in his chair. Suddenly he was picturing Nora curled up on the couch scrolling her phone, a picture of Salar de Uyuni on the screen—the sky mirrored in still water, everything blurred into white.
She’d looked up. “Ethan, when are we going to see it?”
He’d been editing Lily’s track day registration. Hadn’t even looked up. “When you’ve saved eight thousand points.”
She hadn’t answered right away. After a while, she just said, “Okay.”
That evening Lily wanted to have dinner. He grabbed a new necklace on the way.
Lily’s eyes lit up when she opened the box. She stretched up and threw her arms around his neck.
“Ethan, you’re the best to me.”
He smiled tightly and pushed an asparagus spear around his plate.
Lily put the necklace on. Then, out of nowhere: “Ethan, is Nora not coming back?”
His fork struck the plate with a sharp clink.
“What are you getting at?”
“I was just asking—”
“Whether she comes back or not, what business is it of yours?”
His voice snapped up. Lily flinched. Her eyes went red.
Ethan sucked in a breath, set the fork down, grabbed a napkin, wiped his mouth.
“From now on, don’t come to me.”
“I’m getting married. If we keep in touch, Nora won’t like it.”
Lily’s mouth trembled. She said nothing.
He looked at her red-rimmed eyes, and a heavy exhaustion settled over him.
He got up and walked out. Lily called after him. He didn’t turn around.
Outside the restaurant, it was raining again.
He stood in the rain without an umbrella.
He thought—that day Nora had stood in the rain with those red roses, had she been this cold too?