I scrub a hand over my jaw. My chest feels too warm and too tight at the same time.
“You want coffee?” Gran asks, softening her voice.
“Sure.”
She pours a mug and sets it on the table, patting the chair beside her. “Sit.”
I sit.
She studies me with those sharp eyes that miss nothing. “Talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Kendrick,” she says gently, “if you liked this girl less, you’d be much calmer.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the words tangle before they can form.
I don’tlikeher. Not in the way Gran means.
Except I do.
More than I meant to.
More than makes sense.
Gran touches my wrist, a small, grounding gesture. “Some things,” she says, “you can’t outwork or outrun. You just have to feel them.”
I stare down into my coffee.
I’m not good at this — the open-chested, vulnerable stuff. I don’t let people in easily. But Emma… she slipped through like she didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to.
“I’m going to check on her,” I say finally.
Gran nods like she’s been waiting for me to figure that out. “Go on, then.”
The walk to her cabin shouldn’t make my pulse thrum the way it does. It’s early, quiet, the air crisp enough to sting my lungs. I tell myself she’s probably just asleep. Or editing photos. Or baking muffins again to distract herself.
But something unsettled curls low in my gut as I approach her steps.
Her car is parked exactly where it was yesterday.
But the cabin feels… still.
Not empty — just still.
I knock.
No answer.
I knock again, harder. “Emma?”
Nothing.
My heart sinks a fraction as I test the door. It’s unlocked.
“Emma,” I call softly. “You in here?”
The living room is neat. Too neat. Her coat isn’t draped over the chair the way it was last night. Her boots aren’t by the rug. The leftover fry bread wrappers we joked about aren’t on the counter anymore.
