I’d noticed.
I was going to keep noticing.
She disappeared back inside, the screen door closing with a soft click. The trailer park felt quieter after that. Just the hum of morning settling into routine.
I stood there a moment longer, replaying her words.
She’s always been better when you’re around.
I didn’t take that as ego fuel. If anything, it made my chest tighten, and my heart beat faster. Because being good for someone meant responsibility. It meant showing up consistently. It meant not flinching when the easy version of things got harder.
I went back to my trailer and got ready for the day.
I wasn’t here because she needed rescuing. I was here because I loved her. The realization didn’t hit like a revelation. It felt more like something that had been true for so long I’d stopped noticing it.
Gravel shifted under my boots as I walked to my truck. I glanced once more toward her trailer before climbing in.
We were talking tonight. I’d make her comfortable enough that she’d tell me everything. About the proposal. About whatever file had gone missing. About the way last night had changed the air between us. Whatever it was, I wasn’t hovering halfway anymore. I was in her life for good, all the way.
Chapter 18
Levi
Asher’s house smelled like garlic bread and small children, which was more or less its permanent state. It was the kind of house that had clearly been overtaken by eight-year-olds—crayon drawings pinned to the fridge with mismatched magnets, a pair of small sneakers abandoned in the middle of the hallway in a way that suggested they’d been kicked off mid-stride, a plastic sword propped against the coat rack alongside two backpacks. Mark and Mara had been put to bed forty minutes ago, which meant they were definitely still awake, and the occasional thump from upstairs suggested at least one of them was using their bedroom floor for purposes it wasn’t designed for.
“They’re fine,” Asher said, when the third thump landed. He dealt the next hand without looking up. “They do this every time I have people over. It’s a performance.”
“It sounds like someone’s moving furniture,” Jude said.
“They’re not. Probably.” He picked up his cards. “They’ll settle.”
Another thump. Then giggling, faintly audible through the ceiling.
“They’re definitely not settling,” Cade said.
“They’ll settle,” Asher repeated, with the unbothered aura of a man who had learned to exist alongside chaos and had simply stopped fighting it. He reached for his beer. “You want to go up there, be my guest.”
Nobody volunteered. Mark and Mara were forces of nature, individually formidable and collectively unstoppable, and they’d had Asher’s number since approximately birth. The rest of us weren’t even close to being able to handle them.
The kitchen table was covered with our usual poker night spread—a bowl of chips that had been steadily depleted since the first hand, a plate of garlic bread that Asher had produced from the oven with the satisfied expression of a man who considered this adequate hosting, four bottles of beer in various states of emptiness, and a bag of pretzels that Jude had brought and was now eating with more focus than he was applying to his cards. The overhead light was slightly too bright, and someone had knocked one of the chairs crooked an hour ago, and nobody had straightened it. It felt exactly like every poker night we’d had since we were old enough to be allowed at the table.
Asher was at the head of it, red hair catching the light as he dealt the cards. Cade to his left, dark-haired and quiet in the way he always was, watching everything and saying less than he knew. And Jude was across from me, pretending to be oblivious to it all as he stuffed his face with pretzels and attempted to hide the fact that he had a crap hand.
“So,” Asher said, studying his hand. Unlike Jude, his poker face was excellent; none of us could ever tell if he held something excellent or something terrible. “The trailer.”
I had been waiting for this. “What about it?”
“You moved it next to hers.”
“Matt asked me to keep an eye on things. Yes.”
Asher set his cards face down and looked at me with the expression he used when he wanted to make clear he waschoosing his words carefully and found the process burdensome. Being the oldest, he’d leveraged that skill into an authority that was equal parts genuine wisdom and deeply irritating older brother energy.
“I’m not saying it was the wrong call,” he said. “I’m saying you need to be careful.”
“You’re the second person to say that to me today,” I muttered.
“Smart,” Cade said, without looking up from his cards. He always seemed to know slightly more than he was saying. As chief of police, he’d developed an air of permanent low-level authority that even Asher occasionally deferred to, though neither of them would ever admit it.
