And whatever was going on with her laptop—whatever file had been deleted—wasn’t small. I didn’t have the full picture, but I had enough to know it was serious.
I waited until Matt’s truck turned onto the main road before I moved back toward the window.
The air drifting through the gap between our trailers carried the smell of coffee and damp gravel. Morning in Sweetbriar always felt deceptively harmless—cool light settling overeverything like a clean slate, as if whatever had happened in the dark belonged to a different version of the world.
I pushed my curtain back slightly. Her window was still open.
For a second, I just stood there, looking at the narrow space between us. It would’ve been easier to close it. To create distance again. To pretend last night had been about adrenaline and instinct and nothing more.
Instead, I leaned closer.
She appeared a second later, as if she’d felt it too. Like, there was a thread stretched between our trailers, and we were both holding on without admitting it.
Her hair was pulled back, loose strands catching the light. She looked steadier than she had in the middle of the night. Less pale. But there was still something tight at the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there a month ago.
“You’re still up,” she said, resting her forearms on the sill.
“Couldn’t go back to sleep.” I studied her face in the early light, the tiredness she was doing her best to carry quietly. Her eyes flicked toward the laptop sitting on her counter before coming back to me—subtle, quick, but I saw it. “Want to talk?” I asked, keeping my tone easy.
She nodded a little too quickly. “Yeah. But I have to work, so I don’t have long.”
I leaned one shoulder against the window frame and let my eyes settle on her. “About last night,” I started, then stopped, choosing the words carefully. “I meant what I said.”
Her brow lifted faintly. “About?”
“Showing up for you. Whenever you need me. All of it.” I let the words sit there without rushing past them, because I wanted her to hear them properly, not just in passing.
Something soft moved under the surface of her expression. “I know,” she said, and the way she said it told me she did—that she’d sat with it, turned it over, and hadn’t quite known what todo with it. Which was fine. I wasn’t asking her to do anything with it yet.
I nodded once, not trusting myself to layer more onto it. If I started unpacking the kiss right now, in the clear light of morning, with half an hour between her and her shift, I’d either say too much or say the wrong thing entirely.
“When do you leave?” I asked instead.
“Half an hour.” She lifted her coffee cup to her lips. “You?”
“Shift in an hour.” The practical world intruding, the way it always did. Shifts, schedules, the ordinary machinery of a day that didn’t particularly care what had passed between two people the night before. For a second, it almost felt normal—morning light, coffee, gravel crunching somewhere down the drive. But I couldn’t let it go. Not entirely.
“Becca.” She looked up. “Maybe you should stay home and rest.”
“I’m fine,” she said, and it didn’t come out defensive—just quiet and certain, like she’d already had this conversation with herself and reached a conclusion.
“You had a panic attack last night,” I reminded her gently. “And I heard enough this morning to know something’s going on that you haven’t told me yet.”
She was quiet for a moment, her gaze dropping briefly before coming back to mine. “It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I replied, keeping my voice even. “That’s the problem.”
The air between our windows felt different now. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the counter where her laptop sat, and that small involuntary movement was all the confirmation I needed.
“About this morning,” I said again, softer. Giving her the opening.
Her breath hitched—just enough for me to notice. “When we kissed,” she said quietly. “I didn’t pull away.”
My pulse kicked. “No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
Silence stretched between us, the kind that settles after something has shifted and neither person is sure how to step forward without disturbing it. The morning held still around us.
“Tonight,” she said finally. “We’ll talk tonight. About everything.” Something in her expression made it feel like a promise she was making to herself as much as to me.
