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Chapter 8
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I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 9
Epilogue — AdrianI hated the matching system.I hated the idea that an algorithm could decide something as personal as a bond and call that fate. Kieran felt the same, so when the Bureau matched us to a human partner we had never met, we filed the appeal together and expected it to work.It didn’t.The only thing that made it bearable was the trial year. One year, and after that we would walk away clean.Then Lila Bennett walked into our apartment carrying coffee like she belonged there, and nothing stayed simple after that.She was shy at first. Careful. Then every so often she would do something unexpectedly brave, like stepping closer to clean blood off a split knuckle or pressing a bandage to a wound while her hands shook.She cried easily, too. Not loudly. Never to be noticed. Just quiet tears slipping down her face while she tried to patch us up.The ridiculous part was that it worked.I’d come back from bad shifts with my nerves scraped raw and my body still running on adrenali
I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 8
Wednesday arrived under a thin, misting rain.By the time we pulled up outside the Bureau, the stone steps were dark with water. Adrian got out first, came around to my side, and opened the door before I could reach for it myself. The moment I stepped down, he guided me close under the awning and brushed the damp from my sleeve with the back of his hand.From the corner of my eye, I saw Kieran take a few steps toward us with an umbrella in his hand.Then he stopped.The night I told him I wanted to end things, he had refused to believe me at first. His eyes went red almost immediately, and he kept saying my name. He reached for me once, but I flinched without thinking, and the look on his face after that stayed with me longer than I wanted it to. Adrian had come in a moment later and pulled him into the next room. I never found out what was said in there. And yet, on Wednesday, he came.The dissolution paperwork was first. It was all strangely ordinary. A clerk confirmed our identitie
I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 7
After I finished cleaning Adrian’s wounds, I went to wash my hands.On the way back, I passed Kieran’s room and noticed the door was still cracked open.He was sitting exactly where they had left him after the fight, half against the wall, one knee bent, his head lowered. The room was dark except for the moonlight spilling in through the window.He still had not cleaned himself up.There was blood on his collar, bruising along his cheek, and a split across one knuckle that looked worse than before. Kieran was usually far too careful about how he looked to stay like that for long.Now he just sat there staring at the floor, as if none of it hurt.I stood there a moment longer than I should have.Then I went back for the extra antiseptic and bandages and left them outside his door.Maybe I really was too soft.I did not want to admit it, but something about the sight of him sitting there alone in the dark made my chest feel tight.I stepped back around the corner and waited.A minute lat
I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 6
At dinner that night, I noticed something was off about Adrian almost immediately.He looked tired, but that wasn’t unusual. What caught my attention was the small paper-wrapped bundle he had set beside his plate and hadn’t touched since sitting down.Inside, in several neatly collected pieces, was the ceramic mug I had made for him.The break wasn’t accidental. It looked like someone had dropped it on purpose. Hard.Across the table, Kieran let out a short laugh.“Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “guess I wasn’t the only one who thought it looked ridiculous.”I barely heard him.All I could think was whether Adrian had cut himself.I reached across the table at once, but Adrian caught my wrist gently before I could start checking his hands.“I’m fine,” he said. “I didn’t have it with me.”I looked at him.“We got called out on a last-minute response,” he explained quietly. “I left it in my office before we headed out. When I came back, I found it like that.”Kieran clicked h
I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 5
He wasn’t looking at the mug anymore.He was looking at Adrian.At the fact that Adrian had brought it to the table. At the fact that he was actually using it.“What is that supposed to be?” he asked flatly, nodding toward the painted shape.Before I could die of embarrassment, Adrian answered for me.“A crescent moon.”Kieran let out a short breath. “That’s the moon?”“It is if you’re not an idiot.”The whole room changed.The laughter was gone. So was the ease.Kieran leaned back again, but the movement looked forced now.“Right,” he said. “Handmade. That makes it better.”He meant it to sound mocking.It didn’t.Adrian sat down beside me as if nothing had happened.Across the table, Kieran still hadn’t touched his breakfast.He was still looking at the mug.And suddenly I understood—this wasn’t about the gift at all.It was about the fact that I had made something with my own hands and given it only to Adrian.Not both of them.Just him.For so long, I had divided everything equally
I Stopped Loving Them Equally Chapter 4
I slipped back to my room without making a sound and lay there staring at the ceiling.So Kieran had planned it from the beginning.He didn’t like me. Not my personality, not my place in his life, not the thought of being tied to me for the rest of his life. Men like him cared too much about pride, status, and always coming out on top. Being matched to me was the one thing in his life he couldn’t twist into a victory.But if he ended it first, people would talk. A beast walking away from a human never looked good. He would be the one blamed for throwing me aside.So he wouldn’t be the first to say it.At first, the plan must have been simple: let Adrian keep me calm, then wait for me to leave on my own when the trial year ended.Except Adrian had changed his mind.He wanted to keep me.So now Kieran was stuck with me, unwillingly.He could live with it, he had said. He could get used to me. He could make do.But I didn’t want to be something a man merely made do with.When I was little
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