TEDDIE
The lunch rush died down around two o’clock.
The truckers had moved on, grumbling about lost time but looking less murderous than before. The family with the kids had settled into a booth with coloring books and tablets, the parents finally able to breathe. A few stragglers remained at the bar, nursing beers and watching the news coverage of the storm, but the frantic energy that had filled the restaurant all morning had faded into something calmer.
Elsa caught my eye from behind the bar and nodded toward the back. “Take a break. You’ve earned it.”
I didn’t argue. My feet were aching and my shoulders were tight from carrying trays, but that wasn’t why I headed toward the back hallway. Knox was already there, leaning against the wall outside Kameron’s office, arms crossed over his broad chest.
He’d been watching me. I’d felt his eyes on me for the past hour, every time I passed by, every time I bent to clear a table or laughed at something one of the customers said. It should have made me self-conscious. Instead, it made me feel warm in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
“Elsa kick you out too?” I asked, stopping a few feet away from him.
“Told me I was getting in the way.” He shrugged, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Apparently, firefighters aren’t as good at busing tables as we think we are.”
“You dropped a whole tray of glasses.”
“One tray. And they were empty.”
I laughed, and the sound echoed in the quiet hallway. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to be back here with him, away from the noise and the chaos, just the two of us.
Knox pushed off the wall and gestured toward the storage room at the end of the hall. “Come on. I spotted a couple of crates back there we can sit on. Unless you’d rather stand.”
I shouldn’t. I barely knew this man. But something about him made me feel safe in a way I couldn’t explain, and my aching feet won out over my better judgment.
The storage room was dim and cool, lined with shelves of supplies—napkins, condiments, spare tablecloths. Knox found a couple of wooden crates and dragged them into the middle of the floor, positioning them so we could sit facing each other. I sank onto one with a grateful sigh.
“So,” he said, settling onto the other crate. His knees were close to mine, almost touching. “Tell me more about this music thing.”
I groaned. “I already told you. It’s just a stupid dream.”
“It’s not stupid. And you didn’t really tell me anything.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, giving me his full attention. “You said you’ve always wanted to sing professionally. What’s stopping you?”
“I told you. I’m not going to leave Wildwood Valley for?—”
“Not that.” He shook his head. “I mean the online stuff. Recording covers, building an audience. You could do that from here. So what’s really stopping you?”
I opened my mouth to deflect, to make a joke, to change the subject. But something about the way he was looking at me—patient, steady, like he had all the time in the world—made me want to tell the truth.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. The words came out smaller than I intended. “I’m scared of putting myself out there and having it not work. I’m scared of people judging me, or laughing at me, or just…not caring at all. I’m scared of wanting something so badly and finding out I’m not good enough to have it.”
Knox was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “That room full of people didn’t laugh at you.”
“That’s different. That was just…karaoke. It doesn’t count.”
“It counts.” His voice was firm. “You got up there and you sang, and you changed the whole energy of that room. That wasn’t nothing, Teddie. That was real.”
I looked down at my hands, twisting them in my lap. “It’s easy to be brave once. When everyone’s watching and you don’t have time to think about it. It’s harder to keep being brave, day after day, when no one’s paying attention and you have to keep choosing it.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
I looked up, surprised by the edge in his voice. His jaw was tight, his eyes shadowed with something that looked a lot like exhaustion.
“The family stuff,” I said. “On your phone.”
He let out a breath. “My dad and my brother-in-law got into it at Christmas. Big blowup. Said things that can’t be unsaid. And now my sister’s caught in the middle, and somehow I’m the one everyone expects to fix it.” He shook his head. “I’ve been on my phone for two weeks straight, trying to keep my family from falling apart. And nothing I do makes any difference.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
