My laugh spills out before I can stop it. “Mmhmm.”
He turns back to me, a fraction too close. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“For who?”
His eyes flick down to my mouth and back up again. “Good question.”
For a second, neither of us moves, but then he slides past me again, as though he’s drawn the line and already decided to stick to it.
“If you need anything,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the main house as he steps outside, “I’m roughly twenty steps away.”
“Twenty, huh?”
“Roughly.”
I glance toward the bathroom again.
“A bath,” I remind him with a wink.
He shakes his head slightly, huffing a chuckle.
“Welcome to Maplewood, Penny.”
I smile and watch him cross the yard, his shoulders squared and muscles rippling under his taut T-shirt with each step. The door to the main house closes softly behind him, and the guest house falls quiet.
I turn slowly, taking it in again. My hand runs back over the edge of the counter, imagining what it must’ve felt like for him. The furniture gone, the shelves empty. Everything sold off in pieces.
He built this once for someone he loved, who stripped it bare.
But when it broke, he rebuilt it again. Still believed in the good and the hope and the love. It’s evident in the fresh paint along the window frames. In the carefully selected cushion covers and the pretty bedside lamp. Even the spices stubbornly lined up by size in the cabinet.
He didn’t leave a wreckage, and that tells me more about him than anything he’s ever said.
Sunlight stretches in through the window, catching on the silver heels I tug from my bag and scattering light across the floorboards. My fingers hesitate, brushing against the worn edges of my journal tucked just beneath the remainder of my clothes.
I’ve kept it packed since I left Toronto, the pages filled with thoughts I couldn’t say aloud, truths I needed somewhere safe to keep.
I slide it out slowly, holding it in my hands before setting it down on the nightstand, because this feels like the first place in a long time that might be safe enough to let myself truly unpack.
Evan may have built this little house to hold boundaries, but right now, looking around this carefully rebuilt room, I don’t feel far from him at all.
Chapter nine
Now there’s music in it
Evan
It’s the music I hear first.
A soft, faint pulse that threads through the floorboards and settles somewhere near the back of my skull. I lie still for a second, staring at the ceiling and listening.
Six. It’s always six.
For the past week, six now means music.
