“Hear that?” Hannah said quietly behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Hear what?”
She nodded toward the living room. “The way they’re already planning around you. Like you’re staying.”
I dried my hands on a dish towel and leaned back against the counter. “They’re just being hopeful.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s kind of the problem.”
We stood there a moment, the house humming around us. Hannah folded her arms, studying the floor like she was choosing her words carefully—which meant she already knew exactly what she wanted to say.
“You don’t look like someone who’s done running,” she said finally. “But you also don’t look like someone who wants to disappear anymore.”
I didn’t answer.
She lifted her eyes to mine, and there was no humor in them. No softness. “Just don’t come back here because it’s easier than choosing what you actually want.”
The words landed clean and precise, right where they were meant to.
“I won’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that.”
She didn’t smile. “Good. Because I don’t think you’d survive doing that. Don’t get stuck, Jasper. Only stay if you want to. Not because you think you owe them anything.”
I swallowed and nodded once.
A few minutes later, I said my goodbyes, accepted one more hug than necessary, and walked back out into the night. The forest pressed close again as I drove away, headlights cuttingthrough dark and shadow, the house disappearing faster than it should have.
I didn’t head back to the cabin. The thought of sitting alone by the river with nothing but my thoughts and the sound of moving water felt unbearable. I turned toward Honeybrook Hollow instead.
The Twilight Tavern was louder than usual. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed too hard near the jukebox. A song threaded through it all, bass soft enough to feel more than hear.
I slid onto a stool at the bar, the wood worn smooth under my forearms. Paige glanced up from pouring a drink and reached for a glass without being asked.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “Just needed a minute.”
She set a beer in front of me. “What kind of minute?”
I huffed. “There’s more than one kind?”
“Mm.” She leaned an elbow on the counter. “There’s ‘I’m fine,’ and there’s ‘I’m about to make a decision I don’t want to think about.’ You look like the second one.”
I took a sip instead of answering.
Paige’s mouth twitched. “Got it. I’ll stay out of it. For now.” She straightened. “We’re going to be slammed this weekend. Snow on the mountain. You around?”
“Yeah. I’ll be here.”
I let the noise settle around me, shoulders loosening a fraction. Then I saw Cara at the far end—one elbow on the bar, her glass cradled loosely between both hands as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. Her cardigan had slipped off one shoulder, hair pulled back but already escaping. She was angled toward where Paige had been standing, not fully present, as if part of her were somewhere else entirely.
I didn’t realize I’d been watching until she turned.
Her gaze moved across the room, skimming faces, then caught on mine. For a second, she just looked at me—not the careful, managed look I’d gotten used to from her, the one that was polite and self-contained and gave nothing away—but something quieter and less guarded, like she hadn’t had time to arrange her expression before it happened. Her mouth softened, and she lifted her fingers in a small wave.
Something settled in my chest like a decision I hadn’t consciously made.
I’d been keeping my distance for months. It had seemed like the right thing—giving her space, not pushing, letting whatever this was between us stay manageable for both of us. I’d been good at it. And then she’d looked at me like that, unguarded and almost tired, and every reasonable argument I had for staying on my side of the room stopped making sense.
