Chapter 48

Not even if it felt like John’s heart was collapsing inside his chest.

“Sorry is not enough.” John shook his head, fighting a wave of nausea. “It’s just not. Sorry would have worked before anything got serious. Sorry might even have worked if you’d tried using it before we slept together. Now it’s a dollar-store bandage over an amputation.”

Parker nodded, staring at the floor. “I know.”

“You should go.” Even though the words came from John’s own mouth, John hated them. Parker didn’t argue, though; he rose, lifted his chin, and set his jaw. “Okay.”

John didn’t watch Parker work fingers back into gloves, or slide buttons into buttonholes. Instead, he kept his eyes on the window and lamented at the clouds rolling in to reclaim the sky. It hardly seemed fair. Too short to enjoy, too quickly gone, the break in the weather had been more of a cruel tease than anything else.

“Goodbye, John.”