Delilah sighs, closes the notebook, and stands. “Fine. We’re checking it again.”
They disappear toward the back without another word.
Tessa watches them go, then looks back at me, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “Subtle.”
“Very,” I agree.
A small smile touches her mouth. Then it fades into something quieter.
“You’re done for the day?” she asks.
“For now.”
Her gaze studies me, like she’s checking something beneath the surface. “You still think they’ll come back?”
There’s no fear in the question. Just honesty. I consider it.
“Maybe,” I say.
I don’t soften it. I don’t need to.
She nods once. “Okay.”
That’s it. No spiraling. No panic. Just acceptance of reality.
“That doesn’t change anything here,” she adds.
I tilt my head slightly. “No?”
“No,” she says. “It just means we stay ready. It doesn’t mean we stop living.”
Something in my chest shifts at that. Because that’s the line I never knew how to walk before. Survival always meant sacrificing something. Distance. Connection. Anything that made you vulnerable. Tessa doesn’t see it that way. She never has. She steps out, closing the space between us without hesitation.
“This place?” she says, gesturing lightly around the bookstore. “It works because people feel safe enough to be here. Not because nothing bad ever happens.”
I watch her for a second.
Then I say, “You made it that way.”
Her expression softens slightly. “We made it that way.”
There’s that word again.
We.
It doesn’t feel foreign anymore.
I reach out before I overthink it, my hand settling at her waist, grounding, steady. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hesitate. Just leans into it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it is now.
A couple from town steps through the front door, greeting Tessa like they’ve known her their entire lives. She answers easily, effortlessly folding back into the rhythm of the space she created.
But she doesn’t step away from me. Not completely. That matters more than anything else.
Later, as the light outside shifts toward evening, the bookstore fills and empties in waves. Conversations overlap. Laughter breaks through in places it wouldn’t have a few weeks ago.
The town is healing.
