The truck moved out onto the road, and I sat with the warmth of the heater and the quiet between us and turned something over in my chest that I didn’t quite have words for yet. Last night had changed something. I could feel it in the way the silence between us sat differently now, easier and heavier at the same time, charged with something that hadn’t been there before. And the thing that made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with fear was that I didn’t want to go back to the way it was before.
I liked it. Whatever this was. I liked it.
The ride to the Stop & Go was quieter than usual, but not awkward. Not exactly.
The heater hummed low, pushing warm air toward my knees while Levi drove with one hand resting easily at the top of the wheel. Pine trees blurred past the windows, the early sun catching on frost that hadn’t quite melted yet.
I folded my hands in my lap and told myself not to stare at him as he drove. Which, naturally, made me hyperaware of everything. The way his jaw shifted when he focused. The faint line at the corner of his mouth that deepened when he was thinking. The quiet presence of him beside me, like this was simply where he belonged.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
I watched the trees blur past the window. “So are you.”
“I’m driving.” He said it easily, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a smile.
“You talk while driving all the time. I’ve been in this truck enough to know that.” I glanced over at him.
He reached over without looking and covered my hand where it rested on my knee, warm and unhurried, his thumb moving once across my knuckles before he put his hand back on thewheel like it was nothing. Like he just wanted to, and so he did. “You’re deflecting, by the way.”
I felt the warmth of it linger on my skin even after he’d pulled away. “You’re analyzing.”
“I’m checking in,” he said, softer now. “There’s a difference.” He let it sit for a moment, easy and undemanding, giving me room. “How are you actually doing this morning?”
I considered the honest answer. “Better than I should be, probably,” I said. “I woke up, and the world was still standing. You were there.” I paused. “It helped. More than I expected it to.”
He glanced over at me, something warm moving through his expression, and then back at the road. “Good,” he said quietly. Just good, nothing added onto it, but the way he said it made it feel like considerably more than one word.
I looked back out the window and let myself smile again, where he couldn’t see it.
The way he said it didn’t feel dismissive. It felt like he believed me and was prepared to handle it if I wasn’t. That certainty did something dangerous to my resolve.
As we pulled into the Stop & Go lot, my stomach tightened before I could stop it. The sedan from yesterday wasn’t there. I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for it until I exhaled. Levi noticed that too. He didn’t call me on it. Instead, he reached over and brushed his knuckles lightly against mine on the center console. Not a big gesture. Just enough contact to make me feel safe.
“I’ll walk you in,” he said.
I didn’t argue.
The bell above the Stop & Go door jingled as we stepped inside, and Elizabeth looked up from behind the counter like she’d been waiting for this exact moment all morning.
Her gaze flicked from me to Levi, then back to me again.
“Well,” she said dramatically, setting down her coffee like she was about to narrate a courtroom scene. “This is interesting.”
I rolled my eyes. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Oh, it’s a great morning,” she replied. “I love when the plot thickens before eight a.m.”
Levi gave her a polite nod. “Morning, Elizabeth.”
“Don’t ‘Morning, Elizabeth’ me like Officer Big Brother didn’t escort her home last night,” she said, pointing a pen at me. “And now Foxy Firefighter Almost-Boyfriend is escorting her in this morning. Add to that, me, Amateur Detective and Full-Time Menace, providing the security camera evidence. Dude, I expect details. Soon.”
I felt my face heat. “There are no details. Not yet anyway.”
Elizabeth leaned forward over the counter. “There are always details.”
Levi’s hand rested lightly at the small of my back, steady and unbothered.
Elizabeth noticed that too.
