“Okay.” I breathed.
He held my gaze for a beat longer than the words required, like he was making sure I’d actually heard it and wasn’t just saying okay to end the conversation. I had heard it. I looked away first.
He disappeared into the bathroom while I finished my tea, and I stood in the kitchen listening to the ordinary sounds of someone else moving through my space—water running, the soft thud of the cabinet—and waited for it to feel strange.
It didn’t.
When he came back out, I held out a mug without asking. He crossed the kitchen toward me to take it, closer than he needed to be in the small space, and his fingers closed over mine on the handle for just a second before he took it from me. Not long. Just long enough. He didn’t comment on it. Neither did I.
We moved around each other in the kitchen with the quiet, instinctive ease of people who had known each other long enough to read the other’s next step. He leaned against the counter. I found my bag. I was reaching past him for my keys when his free hand came to rest lightly at my hip, steadying, just for the second it took me to reach around him. I was glad I was looking at the counter, not at his face, because whatever expression I wore in that moment was not one I was ready to explain.
He rinsed his mug and set it in the sink. I was pulling my jacket off the hook by the door when he stopped beside me. He didn’t say anything. He just tilted my chin up with one finger,gently, and looked at my face for a moment the way he had on the gravel that morning—checking, making sure—his eyes moving over me with that quiet, steady attention that made it very hard to remember what I’d been about to do. Then he let go, stepped back, and picked up his keys from the counter like it was nothing.
“I’m going to my place to change,” he said. “Be right back.”
I stood by the door after it closed behind him, jacket half on, one hand still on the hook, and stared at the middle distance for a moment.
I was going to need significantly more tea before I was equipped to deal with Levi Barrett this morning.
The door closed behind him.
I stood there for a moment in the sudden quiet, both hands wrapped around my mug, listening to his boots on the gravel outside. The trailer felt like itself again, a little worn at the edges. But different too. Like a room looked different after someone moved furniture, even if they put it all back exactly where it was.
I was not going to make this into a thing.
I washed both mugs. I brushed my hair. I changed my socks because I didn’t like the pair I’d put on the first time, and life was too short for bad sock choices. I told myself these were normal morning tasks and not a transparent attempt to keep busy while I waited for a knock at the door.
The knock came eight minutes later. I opened the door.
He’d changed into a clean Henley and dark jeans, jacket unzipped, hair still a little damp.
“Ready?” he said.
“Almost.” I pulled my jacket off the hook and checked my pockets twice out of habit. Keys. Phone. Then I remembered my car wasn’t there and felt briefly ridiculous.
Levi watched me figure it out without saying anything, which was somehow worse and better than if he’d laughed.
“You’re riding with me,” he said again with a grin. “No Elizabeth. No Matt.”
“I know,” I said, before my pride could make it complicated.
Something in his expression eased. He held my eyes for a beat longer, like he was making sure I meant it, and then he stepped back to give me room to lock the door.
I should’ve felt embarrassed about the fact that I was being walked to someone else’s truck like I was sixteen and grounded. Instead, I felt something else entirely. I felt supported. And that wasn’t something I was used to letting myself feel.
He glanced at me as we crossed the gravel together. “We’ll grab your car after work. Or I can have my brothers get it. We’ll see.”
“Okay,” I said, and then—before I could stop myself—added, “Thanks.”
His gaze softened. “Always.”
The word wrapped around my ribs and settled there, quiet and steady, like something I could lean against without falling.
He was already at the passenger side when we reached the truck, hand on the door, waiting. I hadn’t asked him to do that. He just did it, the way he did most things—quietly, without announcement, like it had simply occurred to him that it was the right thing and so he’d done it. I climbed in, and he closed the door behind me, and I watched through the windshield as he rounded the hood, unhurried, hands in his pockets, and I had approximately four seconds to get my face under control before he got in beside me.
He fastened his seatbelt. Turned the key. The heater kicked on with a low rumble, and warm air began to fill the cab. He glanced over at me before pulling out, just a quick look, checking I was settled—and then he winked. Small, unhurried, like he knew exactly what kind of morning it had been and found it at least partly amusing.
I looked out the window so he wouldn’t see how much he was affecting me.
