She’d come over late. Said she needed to get away, didn’t say from what. That was the first clue. She was always honest with him. But tonight, she’d shown up in jeans and one of his old shirts she must’ve stolen years ago, looking like she hadn’t slept in a day and smelling faintly of someone else’s perfume.

They sat for a while in the upstairs lounge at Graceland, just the two of them and a record playing low in the background—Otis Redding, because that always settled her. She curled her legs under herself on the couch, sippin’ on a glass of sweet tea like she was anywhere but the mansion of a man who could give her anything she asked for… except the one thing she never took.

She never took him.

Elvis had been watching her for the past half hour, saying not much. Just lettin’ her talk. Or try to. Because she wasn’t really saying anything at all.

Not about her.

She hadn’t brought up the girlfriend once.

And that wasn’t like her.

Elvis leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, the rings on his fingers catching the dim lamp light. The air was heavy. August heat still clingin’ to the walls. She looked a little too small tonight. A little too quiet. He could feel her unraveling.

And deep down, there was a sick, selfish part of him that wanted it.

Wanted her to be hurting.

Wanted her to finally need him the way he needed her every damn day.

He sighed through his nose, hand dragging slow down his face. Then, softly, like it was just a question he asked himself out loud—but his eyes never left hers.

“What’d she do, darlin’?”

He leaned back again, real slow. One ankle over his knee, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes dark. Watching her.

“’Cause I know you. You only come here when somethin’ breaks. And I know how hard you try to make people believe nothin’ ever gets to you. But you don’t fool me. So tell me what she did, sweetheart. Tell me so I don’t have to go picturin’ it worse than it already is.”

There was no teasing in his tone. No flirtatious sparkle in his eye. Not tonight.

Tonight he looked like a man who’d been second place too many times, and didn’t know if he could survive being an afterthought one more time—especially not to a woman who barely knew how to love her right.

He didn’t want to be her friend anymore.

He wanted to be her last.