But the photo sits in my apron pocket like a boulder. Every time I move, I feel its weight.
Someone stood in the alley outside the window I pass forty times a shift. They watched me laugh. And I let myself look unguarded.
You know better.
I had known better. For months, I’ve been tracking each unfamiliar face and checking every car that sat for too long near where I live or work. But one laugh was all it took.
I won’t do that again.
Logan walks in at his usual time.
My jaw tightens before I can stop it.
He settles onto his stool and sets his notebook on the counter. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t.” He opens the notebook. “Just said you look tired.”
I don’t reply. I need to get through this shift without cracking open in front of half the town.
I move to the other end of the counter and restock the cup hooks and tell myself the relief settling in my ribs comes from a person I trust being in the room.
At two-seventeen, I retreat to the break room and sit on the overturned milk crate Roz calls a chair. I breathe through the tightness in my stomach until it loosens.
The craving hits at two forty-five. Not for alcohol—I swore off that years ago—but for the familiar urge to make it all stop by finding an exit.
I breathe through that too.
Not today.
By four o’clock, the lunch crowd is gone, Dani’s shift is over, and it’s just me, Roz, and the quiet before dinner service. I should go home, but I don’t want to leave the safety of the diner.
Still, I do.
With my keys in hand, I walk to my truck. I’m angry at the photo, at the situation, and unfairly at Logan. If he hadn’t turned me down when I was nineteen, I never would’ve left Lush Hollow. I wouldn’t have come back carrying all this baggage.
I need someone to blame. Today, it’s him.
He’s leaning against the bed of my truck.
I stumble but catch myself. He looks like he did the day the Sarah Jenkins case broke: watchful and unmovable.
I stop ten feet away. Otherwise, I might throw myself into his arms, and that would be even more embarrassing than what happened nearly ten years ago.
He doesn’t say anything.
I want to sag with relief, and I hate that, so I straighten instead. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I know.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile.
I cross the rest of the distance. Close enough that I can smell coffee and pine. “Why now?”
“You’ve looked different. Yesterday, I ran the plate on a car I keep seeing around town.”
My muscles loosen a fraction. Eli and I aren’t the only ones who noticed it. “And?”
