“You know something,” I said.
“I know lots of things,” he replied. “I raise.”
“Cade.”
He looked up then, and something in his expression was more serious than the tone of the evening had been. “I’m not getting into it,” he said. “It’s not my place, and it’s not my information to share, not here. But Matt and I have had some conversations lately, and what I will tell you is that you’re right to be where you are, and you need to keep your eyes open.” He held my gaze for a second, then looked back at his cards. “That’s all I’ve got for you.”
The table was quiet for a moment. Jude, to his credit, didn’t make a joke, which told me he’d already picked up on the weight of it.
“Is she safe?” I asked.
“She’s safer with you next door than without,” Cade said. “Leave it there.”
I left it there because Cade in cop mode was immovable, and I knew better than to push. But his words settled into my chest and sat there, a combination of worry and resolve that had beenliving in me since I’d first moved the trailer and seen the way she’d clocked the distance between our windows and gone very carefully neutral.
“Okay,” Asher said, apparently deciding the serious portion of the evening had run its course. “Different angle. Are you in love with her?”
“Asher—”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“It’s absolutely not a yes or no question, and you know it.”
“It really is, though,” Jude said, helping himself to another pretzel. “I’ve seen you look at her. It’s very much a yes or no situation.”
“You’re my twin,” I said. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side. That’s why I’m asking.” He pointed a pretzel at me. “Because I’ve been watching you look at her for years and doing absolutely nothing about it, and I’m running out of patience on your behalf.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
“I think so.” He ate the pretzel. “So. Yes or no.”
I picked up my beer, took a long sip, and said nothing, which was answer enough for all three of them apparently, because Asher leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man whose suspicions had been confirmed.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, in the tone that meant he’d been thinking about this for a while and was finally going to say it. “We’re not worried about you being in love with her. That ship has sailed, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.” He picked up his cards again. “What we’re worried about is you getting hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt.”
“You’ve been quietly carrying a torch for this woman since before any of us can remember,” Asher said. “She’s had a rough year. She’s been through it with Travis, with the job, with all of it.And now she’s living thirty feet from your front door, and you’re—” he gestured at me, “—whatever this is. We just want you to go into it with your eyes open.”
“My eyes are open.”
“And Travis,” Asher added, like he’d been building to it. “What’s the situation there? Because that’s been on and off more times than I can count, and I’d hate for you to be in the middle of it when it swings back the other way.”
“It’s not swinging back,” I said.
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
Asher didn’t look convinced. He had the skepticism of someone who had watched the Travis situation from a distance for long enough to have formed strong opinions about its structural integrity. “She’s said it was over before,” he said, not unkindly. “More than once.”
“This is different,” I said.
“How?”
I thought about how to explain it—the way she’d talked about Travis lately, not with the careful tone of someone still working through feelings, but with the flat, settled finality of someone who had already done that work and come out the other side. The way she’d set the boundary in the parking lot was with the directness of someone who had stopped leaving room for negotiation. The way she said his name now, when it came up at all—like it was something she was already putting behind her rather than something she was still carrying.
