“I have a cabin,” he says. “It’s off-grid, in the woods outside town. Nobody comes there unless I want them to.” He meets my eyes. “You’d be safe.”
“With you.”
“With me.”
I stare at him. The man who tucked a blanket around me last night. Who sent Percy to guard my door. Who told me he doesn’t give a shit and then drove back here anyway.
“I sleep with a box fan on,” I say finally. “It’s loud.”
He blinks. “What?”
“If we’re going to be roommates or whatever, you should know. I have to sleep with a fan. And with the windows open. Bugs come in. It’s actually a hazard.”
His mouth curves. Not quite a smile, but close.
“I love fans,” he says. “And I have pest control.”
“And sometimes I have weird nightmares that make me grab random things like kitchen utensils. I might stab you accidentally in my sleep.”
“Good to know.” He nods. “I keep a knife under my pillow and wake up before dawn.”
“Your breathing annoys me.”
“Your voice annoys me.”
“Great.”
“Super.”
We stare at each other, and that familiar irritation brews in my chest and flushes up my neck.
“I’ll go with you.”
He stands before holding his hand to pull me up. I slip my fingers into his, and let his warmth ground me.
“But you don’t get to shut me out. And I won’t stop digging, so don’t waste your breath trying to get me to.”
His jaw tenses. “Deal.”
I nod once and move toward my closet, pulling out my suitcase. “What will we tell Art?”
He leans against the archway into the kitchen. “He wants me to watch you anyway. If I tell him someone was following you and I scared him off, he’ll agree that with me is the safest place.”
“What if he wants me to stay with him instead?”
Lance gives me a knowing look.
“Right.” My heart thumps. “God forbid his dad know I’m sleeping under the same roof.”
I pack in silence, hyperaware of him standing by the window, watching the street below like he’s expecting someone.
Maybe he is.
The drive to his cabin takes thirty minutes.
The roads narrow and the town lights thin until they disappear entirely, replaced by trees and the crunch of gravel under tires.
Neither of us speaks.
