He stands perfectly still, like a statue carved from night.
“Can I help you?” he asks, and it sounds like he hopes the answer is no.
The voice hits next. His accent is British, clipped, and cool. It slices through the sleepy mountain air with surgical precision. It doesn’t fit the scenery. Or maybe I don’t fit the scenery, and he knows it instantly.
“Hi, I’m renting the house next door. My lock might be frozen,” I say, breathless from nerves I disguise as annoyance. “Or jammed. Or whatever locks do when they’re assholes.”
His eyebrows lift by a millimeter.
Judgment level: advanced.
He doesn’t speak, just… stares. Appraising. Patient, the way a boulder is patient. Immovable and silently annoyed at the wind that dares to hit it.
Movement catches my eye. There’s a small figure half-hidden behind his leg. The girl peeks out, big brown eyes curious, curls wild around her face like she’s part woodland sprite. She clings to him with one hand, like she’s still deciding if I’m safe or some feral creature that crawled out of the woods.
She can’t be more than ten or twelve. Old enough to be cautious. Maybe young enough to still believe in magic and monsters. Or not.I soften automatically. The way I do around kids, the way something in me untangles at the sight of innocence.
I wiggle my fingers in a tiny wave, smiling. “Hey, sweetheart.”
She hides again, then reappears for half a second, giving me a shy half-grin before disappearing like a nervous rabbit.
Something warm flickers in my chest. Something protective.
The man notices. His jaw tightens just a fraction; it’s subtle, but there. His whole body shifts closer to her in that instinctive dad way, like he’s a shield without even thinking about it.
He clears his throat. “Right. The lock.” His voice is flatter now, brusque but not unkind. “I’ll get my tools. Meet you over there.”
No introduction. No sympathy. No mountain-town hospitality.
It shouldn’t affect me. But something about his distance, his calm, his quiet confidence makes me hyperaware of every nervous twitch in my body. Every breath is too fast. Every piece of me unraveling at the edges.
“Thanks,” I say, already backing away, almost tripping over my own boots as I retreat down his steps.
The door closes behind him before I even reach the path, leaving me alone again in the cool mountain dark, my heart pounding as if I’ve just survived something far more dangerous than a grumpy neighbor.
Back at the porch, I pace. The boards creak under my boots in a slow, uneven rhythm that does nothing to settle my pulse. My hands shake—stupid adrenaline in my blood, leftover dread from the drive and the dark and the too-much silence. Silence so thick it feels like it’s pressing fingers against my throat.
I rub my arms, trying to warm myself, trying to keep them from shaking too visibly. The lake is quiet and patient, but the trees aren’t—every rustle, every snap of a twig, every whisper of wind sounds like a threat. Sounds like someone stepping where they shouldn’t. My brain fills the shadows with eyes.
“Get it together,” I whisper to myself.
I don’t.
Footsteps approach. They’re heavy enough to be human, steady enough to be him. Confident, unhurried. The opposite of everything inside me. The sound travels up the steps before he appears at the bottom, toolbox hanging from one hand like it weighs nothing.
I straighten, force my shoulders back, and wipe my palms on my jeans.
He climbs the steps with that same maddening calm, and I try—god, I TRY—to sound casual when I blurt, “So… why do you have a British accent and live in the middle of nowhere?”
The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them. They sound nosy. And weirdly invasive. Like I’m interrogating him instead of making small talk.
He slides me a look. Dry enough to wick moisture from the air. His eyebrow barely moves, but the sarcasm is practically glowing.
“Who moves to the mountains wearing fluorescent hair?”
My stomach drops straight through the porch.
“What?” I squeak, already knowing.
