And she was smiling.
At me.
My chest tightened.
“Is this… normal?” I asked, gesturing helplessly at Barcode, who had relocated to a bin of paracord.
“Pretty much,” she said. “She likes the gear shed. It’s her version of a mall.”
“Barcode has her own mall?”
“She loves to accessorize, always has,” she confirmed, dead serious.
I stared at the zebra, then at her. “And do I want to know what she does with them?”
“Oh, Barcode doesn’t use them,” she said breezily. “She just collects them until someone bribes her with apples to give them back.”
I rubbed my face. “Of course she does.”
She laughed with a bright, bubbling sound.
I turned toward her and instantly registered something off. Her smile was warm, but her eyes… restless. Her fingers tapped lightly against her thigh. Her weight shifted between her feet too quickly.
Nervous.
She was twitchy, trying too hard to act normal. Trying too hard to act like nothing from the tent or the hike or the morning after was still sitting between us.
I had approached slowly, not wanting to spook her or the zebra. Beck’s warning from the day before loud in my head
“How are you holding up?”
“Me? Great!” she said too fast. “Never better. Totally fine. Fantastic, actually. Couldn’t be more normal.”
I gave her a look. “Sienna.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Your left eye twitched.”
“It did not.”
“It did.”
She glared at me adorably and opened her mouth to argue when Barcode trotted directly between us, causing me to catch her by the waist to keep her upright.
Her breath hitched.
My heart stopped.
She looked up at me, startled and vulnerable, and for one suspended second, nothing else existed—not the zebra, not the shed, not the warnings or worries or fears.
Just her and me in the space where we existed.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Her lips parted. “Carson…”
