I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
He gestures with the lid.
“First time I took her to the fair without my dad. That one’s from the day she started kindergarten. That hospital bracelet’s from when she fell off the jungle gym, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.” His thumb rubs over a movie stub. “This one’s the first movie she sat through without asking me if the characters were okay every five seconds.”
His voice goes rough on the last word, and I feel it like sandpaper over my nerves.
“I tell myself it’s just practical. But really… I just don’t want to lose the proof that we made it through the hard days. That some of them were good. That I didn’t screw it all up.”
I stare at him, my throat burning.
It’s so… vulnerable.
I’ve never seen Boone like this. Not stoic ranch owner. Not exhausted single dad. Not gruff boss. Just… man.
A man who’s terrified of losing the tiny pieces of a life he built out of nothing.
A man who collects evidence that he’s not failing the person he loves most.
My heart twists so hard it almost hurts.
“I get sentimental things,” he continues quietly, eyes still on the lunchbox. “Even if I pretend I don’t.”
He closes the lid gently and sets it back on the shelf, fingers lingering a second longer than necessary.
When he turns back to me, we’re closer than I realized.
Too close.
The pantry is small. Two people in here makes it feel even smaller. The space between us is shrinking down to inches. I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the line of his throat, the way his next breath lifts his chest.
He smells of soap and hay. Cedar. Sun. This house.
His gaze catches mine. Holds.
The atmosphere hums between us, low and electric.
My brain helpfully supplies:This is a terrible idea.
My body does not care.
“I’m sorry I picked it up without asking,” he says. “The jar. I didn’t know what it was.”
I lick my lips, suddenly aware of my own heartbeat in my mouth. “I… overreacted.”
“You didn’t. You were protecting something that mattered to you.”
His eyes flick down to my mouth.
It’s the tiniest movement. A split-second glance. Anyone else might miss it. But I feel it like a touch.
Heat floods my cheeks.
“I know what it’s like to have people treat your whole life like it’s theirs to inspect. I don’t want to be one of them.”
The words slide under my skin and sink deep.
And now I can’t stop looking at his mouth.
