She stopped.
I leaned forward just enough that the space between us felt smaller. “I’m not coming for the puzzles.”
Her breath caught—small, but I saw it. Her eyes searched mine like she was trying to decide if I’d meant to say it that way. I had. I’d meant every word of it, and I was done pretending otherwise.
“I’m coming for the snacks,” I added, letting her off the hook just enough.
Her mouth curved, but it didn’t fully undo the moment, and I was glad. “Right,” she said. “Obviously. The snacks.”
We held each other’s gaze longer than necessary. The noise of the bar moved around us and neither of us acknowledged it. Then she nodded like she’d come to a decision I wasn’t privy to, and something in me wanted badly to ask what it was.
“Drive safe,” I said.
She glanced back over her shoulder as she turned to go. “It’s a two-minute drive.”
“Still,” I said, a faint smile on my mouth.
Then she slipped into the crowd, and the door opened behind her and closed again, and I stayed where I was for a moment longer than made sense, looking at the space she’d left.
Paige reappeared in front of me, hands braced on the counter, expression already halfway to amused. “Well,” she said.
I dragged my gaze back to my beer. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re about to.”
She smirked. “You’re going on Friday.”
“Yeah.”
“Mm.” She nodded like she’d expected nothing else. “Thought you might.”
I finished my beer, set the glass down, and pushed to my feet. “Don’t close out,” Paige called after me. “It’s on me.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I know,” she said. “Go home, get some rest.”
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. The night air hit cold and sharp as I crossed the lot, gravel crunching under my boots, the noise from the bar dulling the second the door shut behind me.
I slid into the truck and sat there, hands resting on the wheel, not starting the engine.
Her voice lingered. The way she’d said,I won’t take it personally,like she already expected me to change my mind. The way she’d tried to walk something back that I hadn’t asked her to say in the first place.
I’m not coming for the puzzles.
Too much. Or not enough. I didn’t know which.
The engine turned over, headlights cutting across the empty road as I pulled out. Honeybrook Hollow slipped past in familiarpieces—dark windows, porch lights, the faint glow of places closing down for the night.
I should’ve been thinking about work. About my knee. About the message still sitting unanswered on my phone. Instead, I kept thinking about her, and the way the silence between us had felt like something I recognized from a long time ago and hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
I slowed at the turnoff toward the cabin, the river just visible through the trees, catching what little light there was. For a second, I considered driving past it. Keeping the engine running. Not stopping.
Then I turned in anyway.
The tires crunched over gravel, the cabin coming into view—dark, still, waiting. I cut the engine and sat in the quiet, the ticking of it cooling filling the space around me.
