Never His Second Choice Chapter 05
He hadn’t realized I wasn’t in Seattle.
More accurately—he hadn’t cared enough to check.
Because whenever he turned around, I was always right behind him.
The corner of my mouth curved. Ethan, when are you finally going to notice I’m not following you anymore?
I dragged my suitcase through Austin’s warm, humid air and started apartment hunting.
Ethan and Nina, meanwhile, were setting up their brand-new life in a Seattle apartment, picking out matching coffee mugs and his-and-hers bathroom slippers.
It took me three days to sign a lease on a nice one-bedroom. I went to the grocery store alone to stock up.
Ethan and Nina, far away in Seattle, were toasting their new jobs at some upscale restaurant.
Two weeks passed before Ethan attended an alumni gathering.
Someone casually brought up how I was doing—and only then did it dawn on him that I hadn’t been in his life for a very long time.
There were no messages from me on his phone.
The quiet around him was too complete. It left him feeling hollow.
Nina picked up on his distraction immediately.
“What is it?”
Ethan was silent for a long moment before answering.
“Do you think… Lena’s dragging this breakup out longer than usual?”
Nina paused. Her fingers tightened involuntarily. But she pulled herself together quickly.
“You know Lena—she throws tantrums like a kid. Comes on fast, blows over fast. Once she’s cooled down—”
“Something feels off.”
Ethan cut her off. There was an uncertainty in his voice he didn’t even realize was there.
“Lena trusts people too easily. She’s alone in Seattle. I can’t relax.”
The undisguised worry in his tone drained the color from Nina’s face.
A classmate nearby caught the tail end of their conversation and edged over, wearing an odd expression.
“Lena? You mean Lena Lee? She’s in Austin. You… didn’t know?”
Some of the wine sloshed out of Ethan’s glass. He didn’t bother mopping it up.
For a man who was always on top of everything, this was the first time he’d felt something slip completely out of his control.
“What did you say? Why would she be in Austin?”
The classmate pulled up my Instagram profile.
“Lena updates her Stories basically every day. Looks like she’s got a pretty good thing going out there. She moved to Austin, joined some sustainable energy startup, doing marketing ops.”
“You guys… haven’t seen it?”
Ethan’s expression darkened in an instant.
He’d complained she posted too much and had muted her Instagram Stories a long time ago.
Nina grabbed his arm, worry painted perfectly across her face.
“Lena must still be angry. She’s throwing a fit and running off somewhere far away. We… we should go bring her back!”
Ethan’s expression turned even blacker. He answered through gritted teeth:
“No. She’s waiting for us to grovel. Let her figure it out herself. She’s not smart enough to make it out there—she’ll come crawling back on her own.”
That’s what he said out loud. But from that day forward, Ethan’s life was different.
He went to work and came home like always—but he checked his phone at a terrifying frequency.
Waiting for coffee in the office break room, he’d instinctively open my Instagram, scrolling through everything he’d been blocking out for months.
Two female coworkers were gossiping beside him.
“Did you hear? Sarah in the next department broke up with Mike a month ago, and she’s already dating the new guy in Finance.”
“A month’s not that long, is it?”
“Not long? Long-distance relationships are the most fragile. Someone else swooping in is so normal.”
Ethan, who never so much as glanced at office gossip, suddenly turned. His voice was tight.
“A month… counts as a long time?”
The two women blinked in surprise, then eagerly launched into conversation with him.
“Of course! Especially long-distance—a month is more than enough time for a lot to happen. Why, Ethan? Long-distance troubles?”
Ethan pressed his lips into a thin line. All he said was, “Sorry,” before turning and disappearing into the stairwell.
Then he dialed the number he’d assumed would always be waiting for him.
…
I’d just wrapped up a project. My performance had stood out, and in the team meeting my manager had praised me in front of everyone and promised to push for a raise.
I’d gone back to my desk on a high, energy sparking through me—when Ethan’s name started flashing on my phone.
Puzzled, I picked up.
Ethan cut straight to it, his voice hard enough to sound like a command:
“Lena, quit your Austin job. Right now.”