“I don’t want her to feel stuck.”
“She wouldn’t feel so stuck if you—” She paused, and I had the pleasure of guessing what the hell she was going to say. “Sorry, I think she’s awake.”
“And I’m sure she’d love the idea of you instructing me to do what I assume are some very inappropriate things.”
“I wouldnever,” she said in mock offense. “I was going to say you could offer to show her around, be her unofficial tour guide for festival weekend. You know…be a normal human male with a functioning sense of charm.”
“That’s a tall order,” I scoffed.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe you don’t have a functioning sense of charm, fair…but you havereally big muscles.And a cute dog! Play to your strengths.”
I groaned and dragged a hand down my face. “Delilah, I’m not gonna flirt with a stranded woman like she’s some kind of cosmic mail-order bride. You’re on this whole fate thing, I know, but she could hop on the next bus out of here and I’d never see her again.”
“She’s not goin’ anywhere,” Delilah said.
“Why does it sound like you’re gonna tie her up and force her to marry me?”
“I don’t have to force her to do anything,” Delilah said. “I’m just sayin’…the town is not going to let her leave.”
I wanted to argue…but I’d seen a hell of a lot in the past year. My brother’s wife had rolled into town entirely by accident and landed in his driveway, then they’d hosted a wedding/exorcism and claimed to have broken a curse by fucking in the wood. Another brother had seen his dead fiancée’s ghost, and he and his girl seemed to have summoned the Holy Spirit to start up a church despite having once had a rattlesnake in his bed.
Shit around here was fuckin’ crazy.
“Morning, sunshine,” Delilah was saying—not to me, but with her hand over the receiver. “How’d you sleep?”
I heard a muffled voice—Noelle’s—then Delilah laughed. “Yeah, we’ve got really good weed around here. And yeah, it’s Beau on the phone.”
I waited, listening…wondering if I should hang up and avoid this whole situation—but then Delilah uncovered the receiver.
“She wants to talk to you,” she said.
“Alright,” I mumbled. “Put her on.”
There was a shuffle, a handoff, and then her voice crackled through the line—still a little raspy from sleep. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I echoed, straightening. “How you feelin’?”
There was a beat, like she was checking in with her body before answering. “Honestly? Not bad. A little groggy, I guess. Delilah fed me pizza and gave me something I’m still not sure was just weed.”
I snorted. “Just homegrown with a little bit of that local Willow Grove sparkle. You’ll get used to it.”
“I’ll get used to it…right,” Noelle said. She paused, and I could practically feel her drawing conclusions. “So…it’s going to take more than a week, then?”
I winced. “Yeah. Sorry. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
She was quiet for a moment, but it didn’t feel like theangry kind of silence. More like she was doing math in her head, trying to figure out if staying in this weird little town was worth blowing up her schedule.
“Well,” she said finally, “guess I might as well do a field episode.”
I blinked. “What?”
“For the podcast. Whispers in the Dark,” she reminded me, like I hadn’t spent half the night replaying that conversation in my head. “That festival’s still going on, right? I could get some footage, record a few man-on-the-street interviews, maybe corner a couple of true believers for fun. Hell, I could probably get half a season’s worth of content out of just sitting on a porch downtown and letting people talk.”
I let out a low whistle. “You’re really gonna stick it out?”
“I mean, I don’t exactly have a choice, do I?” she said, but her tone wasn’t bitter—just resigned in the way people got when they were already plotting five backup plans. “Might as well make the most of it. Who knows? Maybe your town’s monster will be my next viral clip.”
Even though I couldn’t see them, IknewDelilah was patting herself on the back right now—and it was confirmed for me when she suddenly chimed in, taking the phone back to put me on speaker.
