Because maybe I’m not sure of anything else in my life right now.
Buthim?
This?
Tonight?
Yeah. I’m sure.
The cold outside hits my skin like a gasp, sobering and welcome. The snow’s packed under our boots, crunching as we walk to his truck.
We don’t talk. Not right away. There’s too much energy still buzzing under my skin from the way his hands were on me. From the way he looked at me, like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.
He drives without asking where. I think maybe he just knows. And when I see the familiar curve of the road, the trees thinning out as we start climbing the ridge, my heart does a strange flip.
Summit Ridge.
He parks just before the overlook, where the trail opens up to the ledge. The valley stretches wide beneath us, blanketed in snow and silence, the lake a frozen mirror under the stars.
We don’t speak for a minute. We just sit there, breathing the same air, the truck engine ticking as it cools. Then I open the door and step out, boots crunching into snow. He follows with his slow but sure gait, giving me space, but I would be able to feel his proximity from three hundred miles away.
The wind is icy, biting my cheeks and waking up my lungs.
I wrap my arms around myself and stare out at the view, memories and emotions flooding inside of me.
“I used to come here with my dad,” I say, voice quiet. “We’d hike up on weekends, or drive up if it was late. He said the air cleared out all the noise.”
Knox is next to me now, hands in his pockets, his gaze on me instead of the valley.
“I get that,” he says softly.
I glance over, then back at the lights of Silver Peak twinkling in the distance. “When life feels too big, this is where I go. When I don’t know what I’m doing. When I feel like the world’s moving too fast and I’m still standing still.”
“Is that how you feel right now?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Like I’m trying to hold everything together, and it just keeps slipping.”
The words come out before I even think them through—raw and real and startling in their honesty. I blink, surprised at myself. At how easy it was to say it out loud. Like something in me just... let go.
Maybe it’s the quiet. Maybe it’s the cold.
Maybe it’s him.
Because somehow, with Knox, it feels safe to be this open. Like I don’t have to carry it all on my own. Like I don’t have to pretend I’m not breaking a little.
He’s quiet for a second, then steps closer. His shoulder brushes mine. “You don’t have to hold everything alone.”
I want to believe him. Man, I do.
I turn to him, and he’s watching me like I’m delicate and breakable, but not in a way that makes me feel weak. In a way that makes me feel seen. Respected. Held together, somehow, by the weight of his eyes alone.
“I didn’t come out tonight expecting this,” I say.
“Me either.”
“But I needed it.”
He nods, then gently lifts his hand to brush a piece of hair out of my face, his knuckles grazing my cheek. “You always come here when things get heavy?”
