I’m not. I’m wired and half-feral and one smart remark away from putting my fist through something that’s not drywall. But she doesn’t need more weight.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She hears it, I can tell. She taps the door handle. “Walk me up? Or is your fake boyfriend contract up for the night?”
I shove the keys in my pocket and get out before I can say something stupid. “Come on, Coleman,” I say, circling the truck. “Gotta sell this thing.”
We walk side by side up the path. Crickets screech. A breeze ruffles the leaves in the big oak. The night smells like dust and distant rain.
Her shoulder brushes mine once, twice. It’s not an accident. It’s not quite deliberate.
On the porch, she stops. We’re in that tiny pool of light, everything else fading out. Her eyes look greener at night, somehow, like there’s more depth the darker it gets around them.
“Well,” she says. “This has been the weirdest date I’ve ever been on.”
“High bar?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Silence stretches between us, taut and shimmering.
She studies me, head tipped like she’s trying to line me up with the ghost in her memory. “You coming inside?” she asks.
Two words.
Too many implications.
My mind offers up an image I have no business entertaining—her backing up into that hallway, my hands on either side of her head, her mouth under mine finally, finally, finally.
I shut it down so hard it almost hurts. “Not yet,” I say, voice rougher than I intend. “I need to make a call to Gray. About Stroud.”
Something flickers over her face. Disappointment? Relief? Both?
“Okay,” she says. “Don’t stay out too long. My mom has Jedi-level hearing. If she thinks we’re having a lovers’ quarrel, we’ll be in couples counseling by breakfast.”
“Can’t afford the copay,” I say.
Her mouth curves.
We stand there anddon’tmove.
Her hand rests on the doorframe, fingers spread. From this close I can see the faint crease on her knuckles from where she grips reins. There’s a tiny scar at the base of her thumb. I remember when she got it—she cut herself on a baling hook and refused stitches.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she whispers.
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re memorizing me.”
I swallow. “Maybe I am.”
Her breath catches.
We’re too close now.
The air between us hums. My heart is pounding in my ears, but under it I hear the soft creak of the house settling, the far-off low of a cow, the tiny, important sound of her exhale.
I lean in.
