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Tanner stood there with one hand on the roof of the truck and realized his own hands were trembling so badly they rattled against the metal.

Miles didn’t say a word about it.

He took the second bag from Tanner only when Tanner let it go and put both in the truck bed. Then he came back around and opened the passenger door.

Tanner climbed in because his body moved. The cab smelled faintly of coffee, and Miles. Familiar enough now that it made Tanner’s throat tighten again. Miles got in on the driver’s side, shut the door, and started the engine. For a few seconds neither of them spoke.

Tanner stared through the windshield. His pulse was still too high. His skin felt too tight. The crash after his panic was starting to hit and he could feel it.

He had really packed a bag and taken Savannah to a bus station because of a letter. No, not just a letter.

Miles put the truck in gear and pulled out of the space. “We’re going home,” he said.

Something in Tanner relaxed enough that he had to turn his face toward the window. The lights from the bus station slid away behind them. He kept his eyes on the road and tried not to think beyond the next ten minutes or the next turn or the next set of lights.

Miles drove the way he always did. Nothing in the cab except the engine, the road, and Savannah’s occasional sleepy sniff from the back.

After a while Miles said, “Cody knows you’re with me.”

“And Orsen, probably,” Miles added. “Mrs. Hemsworth too.”

Tanner shut his eyes briefly. “Great.”

“Nobody’s coming over tonight.”

That made his eyes open again. “You told them that?”

“I told them I’d get you home first.”

The first wave of relief from that was followed almost immediately by suspicion. “And then what?”

“Then tonight is tonight.”

Tanner frowned. “That doesn’t answer anything.”

“It answers tonight.”

Tanner leaned his head back against the seat and stared at the dark road ahead. He was too tired to ask for more. Part of him didn’t want more yet. Anything bigger meant tomorrow, and tomorrow meant the letter was still waiting on the counter. Tanner tensed.

Miles noticed because he noticed too much. “Breathe slower.”

Tanner almost snapped at him, but somehow he didn’t.

A minute later Miles said, “You did stop.”

Tanner snorted. “Do I get a medal?”

“No.” Miles kept his eyes on the road. “You get credit for the thing you managed when it would’ve been easier not to.”

Tanner looked at him then. Miles’ hands were steady on the wheel. His face gave away little in the dark. But there was no softness there. Just the truth of what he’d said. Tanner looked away again because he didn’t know what to do with that.

By the time they turned onto his road, Savannah was fully asleep in the back.

The house came into view under the porch light Mrs. Hemsworth must have turned on after they left. Tanner stared at it as Miles pulled in.

It looked exactly the same. Except Tanner wasn’t the same man who had left two hours earlier. Or maybe he was, and that was the problem.

Miles killed the engine and neither of them moved straight away.