He didn’t startle. He barely blinked. “Could ask you the same,” he said.
“I was walking.”
“Me too.”
Silence fell between us, not awkward, but heavy in a way that felt like it meant something.
I crossed my arms, more defensive posture than warmth. “You always walk around in the middle of the night, or is this your way of sneaking up on women?”
His mouth twitched into that crooked half-grin that seemed to come easy for him. “Depends on the woman,” he said, the words lazy and slow. “But nah — I do this a lot.”
“Why?”
His eyes cut toward the woods. “Ghosts.”
I blinked at him. “…Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He tipped his chin toward the dark. “This land’s old. Lotta history. I’ve seen things out here, heard ’em too.”
A laugh escaped me before I could swallow it. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious,” he said, and there wasn’t a hint of teasing in his voice. “Had a run-in when I was a kid. Since then, I just… look. Sometimes you find things out here. Sometimes they find you.”
“That’s comforting,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry,” he said, that grin sliding back, slow and confident. “They usually don’t mess with pretty women.”
I rolled my eyes. “So I’m safe because I’m pretty? That’s your scientific reasoning?”
“Worked so far,” he drawled. “You scared?”
“Of ghosts?” I shook my head. “I’ve seen worse than dead people.”
His smile faded, not gone, just gentled, like something in my answer hit a place he didn’t talk about often. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Guess you have.”
The air shifted, thinner, warmer, waiting for one of us to break the moment. I looked away first, letting my gaze settle on the tree line. “Well, if one of your ghosts shows up, don’t expect me to run screaming.”
“Didn’t think you would.”
When I turned back, he was still watching me, not like he had inside the clubhouse, not hungry or assessing, but real curiosity. Respect in the quiet of it.
It shouldn’t have made my pulse skip.
But it did.
He didn’t say anything else. Just turned toward the woods and started walking like he expected me to follow.
I should have gone back inside. I should have walked the other direction, let him chase shadows alone.
But my feet betrayed me before my reasons could catch up.
The grass was cool and damp under my shoes. Every sound carried, the whisper of leaves brushing one another, the low hum of insects, the distant bark of a dog somewhere down the road. It should’ve felt eerie.
It didn’t. Not with him walking just ahead of me.
Chain moved like a man who’d walked these paths a hundred times, flashlight beam cutting through the dark, shoulders loose, steps certain, like the night answered to him.
“So you really do this?” I asked. “Just… wander around in the dark looking for ghosts?”
