A pause. Then the door clicked open.
“It’s Ray. Can I come up?”
That night, after Bruce fell asleep in front of the television, Ray drove to a deserted beach south of Wollongong. The moon was a thumbnail clipping in the sky. He stood at the water’s edge and took out his phone. No messages. No jobs lined up. For the first time in years, the silence wasn’t a trap — it was a choice. Mr Inbetween S02E08 See You In Your Dreams 1080...
He buzzed Chloe’s apartment.
“Yeah. I promise.”
His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: “New job. Warehouse in Botany. 8 p.m. Don’t be late.”
The waves crashed. When he looked again, she was gone. Ray drove home in the gray pre-dawn. He stopped at a twenty-four-hour gym, showered, changed into a clean black shirt. Then he sat in his car outside Chloe’s apartment building. He watched her light come on at 6:15 a.m. Watched her silhouette make coffee, feed a cat he didn’t know she had. A pause
As he climbed the stairs, he thought of Bruce’s dream again. “I’ll see you in your dreams from now on.” Maybe that was the point. Not an ending, but a handoff. The violence would always be there, waiting in the wings. But for one morning — just one — he’d choose the coffee, the cat, the woman who didn’t ask questions.
Ray smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He’d been up all night, replaying the Carlo job. The way the man’s phone had kept buzzing on the nightstand. A child’s picture as the wallpaper. A little girl with pigtails and a missing front tooth. Can I come up
