He nodded. “I get that.”
The silence stretched, full of things I wanted to say and didn’t know how. I wanted to touch him, to run my fingers over the stories on his body, to ask him about every one. I wanted to know if he’d let me. If he’d ever want to touch me back.
Instead, I said, “You should put on a dry shirt. Don’t want you catching cold.”
He shrugged, tossed the towel aside, and left the kitchen. I watched the play of muscles under his skin, the way he moved—loose, unhurried, as if he was totally unaware of the effect he had on people.
He returned with a t-shirt, this one faded black with the sleeves cut off. He caught me staring, but didn’t comment. “Done?” he asked, nodding to the dishes.
I checked the counter. All clean, all stacked, all done.“Yeah,” I said.
He looked me up and down, then pointed to the chair. “Sit. You’re overexerted.”
I wanted to argue, but my legs felt shaky. I sat, folding myself into the smallest possible shape, trying not to think about the way my body was buzzing with energy.
Knox stood over me for a second, then reached out and brushed a damp strand of hair away from my forehead. The touch was gentle, almost apologetic.
“Rest,” he said, and then he was gone.
I sat there, heart pounding so hard it felt like a medical event. My shirt clung to my skin, and my body was alive with a heat that had nothing to do with the water.
I thought about all the ways I could have played it cooler. Maybe tomorrow, I’d be less obvious. Or maybe I’d just let myself hope that the next time he caught me staring, he’d actually do something about it.
Tonight, though, I was content to replay the image of him, shirtless and unguarded, standing inches away. Tomorrow, I’d try again. And maybe—just maybe—I’d be brave enough to reach out and touch.
Night came down on the McKenzie farm like a wet blanket. The air cooled fast, carrying the smell of cut grass and distant river, the sounds of insects revving up their tiny engines for the graveyard shift.
By nine, the house had gone quiet—lights out in the kitchen, TV off, even the usual banging from Ransom’s room replaced by a soft, bass-heavy lull.
I sat out on the porch swing, knees hugged to my chest, watching the dark fill in the cracks between trees. The porch was deep and old, boards creaking every time I shifted. The only lightwas a bug-zapper halfway down the rail, its blue glow haloing everything in shades of the uncanny.
I liked the night. It made everything less certain, more possible.
A screen door banged. Knox emerged, mug in hand, wearing old sweatpants and a t-shirt with a neck so loose it might as well have been a v-neck.
He paused at the threshold, as if measuring the risk of joining me, then crossed the porch in three long strides. He settled next to me on the swing, which dipped low under his weight, throwing me off balance.
I overcorrected, then tried to play it cool by stretching out my legs, pretending I wasn’t intensely aware of how close our knees were.
He took a sip from the mug, then handed it to me. “It’s just tea,” he said, as if I’d ever expect anything else from a man who drank whiskey straight from the bottle.
I drank. It tasted like lemons and dust and something sweet at the end. I passed it back, our fingers touching, warm for a second.
The swing groaned. We rocked a little, not in rhythm, but not out of sync either. The bug-zapper popped. The world felt small and close, like the porch was its own country and the two of us were the only living things inside it.
We didn’t talk for a long time.
Then, quietly, Knox said, “You ever think about leaving here?”
It wasn’t the question I expected.
“Sometimes,” I said. “More before I got here. Less now.”
He grunted, which could mean anything from “I understand” to “the idea offends me on a molecular level.”
I leaned back, letting the swing drift. “You?”
“I left once,” he said. “Didn’t take.”
