Their breakup had been messy in the quiet way—no screaming, no slammed doors, just them standing there with tears they tried to hide and Tig pretending he didn’t hear the crack in their voice when they said she couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t keep waking up wondering if today was the day someone put him in the ground. He’d let them go because he loved her… and because he fully believed they’d come back.

But weeks passed, and they didn’t.

So when Tig walked into the local diner and saw them sitting across from some clean-cut, normal-as-oatmeal guy in a button-down, laughing too politely, smiling a smile that wasn’t real… something in him snapped into a grin. An evil, delighted, mine grin.

Before either of them noticed, Tig slid right up to their booth and dropped into the empty seat beside them like he’d been invited. “Well hey there, sweetheart,” he announced, draping an arm across the back of the booth behind their shoulders. “Didn’t know we were doin’ group dates these days.”