She smiles then, softer than before, more settled. Then she reaches across the table, setting her hand over mine. I let it stay there, my thumb shifting slightly against her fingers without thinking about it.
We sit in that way for a while, the noise from the bar filtering in through the walls, life moving on outside this room while we stay still inside it.
After a minute, she squeezes my hand lightly.
“I’m glad you told me,” she says.
“Me too.”
She tilts her head, studying me again. “You’re good at this.”
“At what?”
“Making things feel safer.”
I glance toward the door, the locks, the small adjustments that have already blended into the background.
“It’s just logistics,” I say.
She smiles, shaking her head slightly. “No. It’s not.”
I don’t argue.
Because for her, it isn’t just about locks or sight lines or reinforced glass.
It’s about the fact that she doesn’t have to carry it alone. And if I can take some of that weight without making a show of it, if I can build something around her that holds, then I will.
As long as she’s here.
As long as I can.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Aurora
The next day,I decide I am going to be normal.
This is, objectively, a ridiculous plan, but I’m deeply committed to it anyway.
I get dressed like a woman who hasn’t recently held pressure on a stab wound in a storage unit at dawn. I brush my hair like my nervous system isn’t currently operating like a smoke alarm with abandonment issues. I put on lip gloss because if I’m going to spiral, I’d prefer to do it with some shine.
Then I head for Coyote Cup.
Because if fear thinks it’s going to turn me into someone smaller, it’s about to be very disappointed.
Also, because caffeine is cheaper than therapy and easier to carry.
Outside is crisp and piney and offensively alive, like Coyote Glen itself is incapable of reading a room. Main Street looks exactly the same as it did before everything tipped sideways. Same flower boxes. Same little shops. Same people moving around with coffee cups and grocery bags and absolutely no visible awareness that I am currently having a low-grade identity crisis in a thrifted leather jacket.
When I push open the door to Coyote Cup, warmth hits me first. Espresso. Sugar. The hiss of milk steaming. The low hum of people existing normally.
Lani looks up from behind the counter and narrows her eyes at me instantly.
“Well,” she says, already reaching for a mug, “you look like someone who needs a baked good and a beverage strong enough to knock loose a haunting.”
I slide onto a stool. “That is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I know,” she replies. “What’s your emergency level today? Cute little wobble or full emotional landslide?”
