Creed hums low in his chest, like he’s sifting through an answer.
“Slowly,” he says finally. “Messily. With a lot of talking for someone like me who doesn’t like talking.”
I smile despite myself. “You, talking. Tragic.”
“Ask Sloane,” he says dryly. “She has graphs.”
“Of course she does.”
He kicks a pine cone off the trail, watching it bounce into the underbrush.
“It started… I don’t know.” He shrugs one broad shoulder. “I thought I was good at keeping things compartmentalized. Drums. Set lists. Schedules. That’s my job. Let Roman and Ezra burn hot. Let them be brilliant and insane. I keep the train on the tracks. Then Sloane shows up with her soft sweatersand this ridiculous belief that we deserved more than the bare minimum, and suddenly half my compartments don’t make sense anymore.”
“And Roman fell first, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Creed agrees. “He’s never met a feeling he didn’t want to amplify through a sound system.”
I huff out a laugh.
“Ezra took longer,” Creed continues. “He always does. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For her to get bored. For him to mess it up. For it to be another story where someone leaves.”
My chest aches at that. I’ve read enough drafts of Ezra’s lyrics to know exactly how deep those roots go.
“And you?” I ask quietly.
He thinks about it.
“I thought I was fine. I told myself I was fine. I… cared.” His mouth tightens. “But I was going to stay out of the way. Let them have… that.”
“And?” I push.
“Sloane didn’t like that plan,” he says simply.
Of course she didn’t.
I slow as the path widens into the lookout. A flat rocky ridge that juts out over the valley, the trees falling away to reveal a sweeping, ridiculous view of Coyote Glen and the mountains beyond. The wind is stronger here, tugging at my hair and jacket, but the sun on my face balances the chill.
I walk to the edge of the rock and stop, toeing the invisible line Boone once joked Sadie wasn’t allowed to cross without “three adults and at least one safety harness.” Below, the tiny patchwork of the town looks peaceful. Smoke curls lazily from chimneys. Cars move like toy models along the roads.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say quietly. The words blow out of me, carried off by the wind. “With Boone. Or Silas. Or Caleb. Or myself, honestly.”
Creed comes to stand beside me, leaving a careful foot of space. Like with the animals, he lets me set the distance.
“I came here to get my life back,” I say. “To… remember who I am when I’m not Marcus’s secret or the internet’s punchline or the sous chef whose name everyone forgets in reviews.”
He doesn’t say anything. I stare at a cluster of houses, trying to guess which one is Ivy’s by the number of cars in the driveway.
“And then I… met them,” I continue. “And it was supposed to be simple. Cook. Save money. Pet some horses. Occasionally breathe mountain air and text pictures of cows to Sloane.”
“She appreciates the cows,” he says seriously.
“She does,” I agree. “And now I’m… kissing my boss in pantries and making out with his best friend in hallways and telling myself it’s just… chemistry. Distraction. Except it doesn’t feel like just anything, and I don’t know how to do this without repeating all my old mistakes.”
The wind whips my hair into my face. I shove it back with a frustrated noise.
“I don’t want to hurt them,” I say. “Or Sadie. Or me. I don’t trust my own judgment, Creed. Last time I thought I was in love, I blew up my career and my reputation and my entire life. I don’t get to be reckless anymore.”
His silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel like he’s judging me. He’s listening so carefully that the air itself is holding still.
