Claire's POV
I stormed off. I was already irritated. Of all things.
Okay, wait. I didn't storm off — I wasn't that dramatic, and I couldn't actually do that on this sandy beach— but I put enough distance between us that he'd feel it.
My feet pressed into the cool, damp sand, and I focused on that. The cold between my toes. The sound of the waves pulling back from the shore. Anything but the irritation buzzing at the back of my skull.
Work. He said work.
I'd been talking — really talking — pouring out something that had been sitting heavy on my chest since the reunion, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, Louis had simply… checked out
Mentally filed me under things to revisit later while he drifted off to whatever spreadsheet or meeting or crisis only he could solve.
I exhaled hard through my nose while I heard him saunter closer from behind me.
"Claire." His voice came from behind me. Closer than I expected.
I didn't slow down. I don't want to.
