I manage a grunt of thanks, but the words dig in deeper than I want to admit.
I haven’t thought about the age gap. Not really. Not the way they just laid it out like a warning sign nailed to a tree. Josie’s always felt like an equal, more than that, even. She challenges me. Pushes me. Makes me feel more alive than I have in years.
But now…
Now I can’t stop thinking about the numbers. The difference in years. The difference in lives.
She’s just getting started.
I’m already on my second act.
I’m about to stand, coffee half drunk, appetite long gone, when the bell above the door jingles and in breezes Mayor Willa.
Oh no.
“Knox!” she trills. “Fancy seeing you here. I didn’t get a chance to talk to you one-on-one last night.”
“Mayor.” I nod tightly, hoping she’ll take the hint.
No such luck.
She sidles up to my table, sunglasses perched in her hair, clipboard in one hand. “You know, I’ve been meaning to say, it’s been so nice seeing what you have been doing online for the town. You and your NFL background have made peoplenoticeSilver Peak.”
My jaw ticks. “That wasn’t exactly me.”
“Mm, right,” she continues, clearly missing or ignoring the strain in my voice. “Tourism is booming, you know. What amazing PR. Better than we ever could have paid for.”
I blink. “PR?”
“Oh, don’t bristle,” she says, like we’re old friends sharing a joke. “Silver Peak will thank you when we’re all doing well out of this.”
I stare at her for a beat too long, pulse thudding behind my eyes.
Damn Jace.
Damn Eli and Jude.
Damn the Internet.
But Willa’s already sashaying off toward the counter, waving to Lily and placing her usual complicated order.
I scrape my chair back and leave a twenty on the table, the muffin untouched.
As I step outside into the cold morning air, the bite of it sobers me. Makes me think harder than I want to. The whispers. The assumptions. The way people see us when they think we’re not looking.
She deserves better than this.
Better than being talked about like a naive fool.
Better than being reduced to a girl caught up with an older, complicated man.
She deserves someone who fits into her world, not someone who makes it more complicated just by walking through it.
But when I picture walking away?
That’s worse.
Way worse.
