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Then there was Megan again.

He has his own life too.

I watched the traffic light change and started across.

I had iced his mouth that morning. Stood between his knees and touched salve to the cut while he watched me.

I had been happy.

That was the worst part. How easily I’d let myself be happy, without considering that his reasons for letting me close might have nothing to do with wanting me there.

I picked up my pace.

A gas station stood at the next corner, its low white canopy shading two rows of pumps. There were cars beneath it, a delivery van beside the store, a woman wrestling a toddler into a back seat.

Ordinary afternoon. Ordinary town.

Through the glass storefront, I saw an employee moving cases of bottled water on a hand truck. She wore a navy polo with a name tag and had gray threaded through the short hair at her temples.

A man stood outside beside the ice chest, looking at his phone.

He glanced up as I approached the driveway.

I slowed to let a pickup pull out.

“Piper, right?” he called. “Heard you were worth watching on a run.”

I looked at him before I could help it.

He was older than the guys at school, though not by much. Early twenties, maybe. A faded black T-shirt stretched across his shoulders, sunglasses pushed onto the brim of a bent cap. His jeans hung low over dirty work boots. He had the sort of face I might have seen around town without remembering it afterward.

He smiled when he saw that I’d heard him.

I looked back at the road.

The pickup passed. I started forward.

He came away from the ice chest and stepped into my path.

“Don’t get stuck-up now,” he said. “Not after what I heard.”

I moved around him, giving him plenty of room.

He followed.

I could have run faster. I could also see the open store, with an employee ten seconds away and people at the pumps. Going inside seemed more sensible than finding out whether he intended to chase me down the next block.

I turned across the forecourt toward the entrance.

My hand went to the belt bag at my waist. I took out my phone and opened Chief’s contact before I had properly decided to call him.

Of course I did.

He would come.

With the swollen lip I’d spent the morning worrying about and that terrible look he’d worn since Monday.

Because a man had said something disgusting to me outside a gas station.