Page 117 of Silent Shadows

“Yep?”

“You seem weirdly nervous.”

This time, when he smiles, it reaches all the way into his eyes.

“I am nervous.”

“Why?”

He glances down at our hands.

Then back at me.

And suddenly this thirty-something man looks younger somehow. Like there’s nowhere for him to hide.

“Because,” he says softly, “I really liked tonight. Maybe too much?”

Something warm blooms through me before I can stop it. Those simple words are more vulnerable than anything that happened back in the woods.

“I really liked tonight, too,” I say quietly.

His smile goes soft. So soft it almost hurts to look at.

For a second, neither of us says anything. We just walk. The night presses close. Crickets sing somewhere in the brush. A low breeze drags through the pines, cool against the overheated skin at the back of my neck. Hands tangled together like maybe neither of us quite knows what to do with this yet. But neither of us is ready to let go.

As the trailhead opens up, the RV comes into view through the trees, a soft block of shadow and faint yellow light. It’s silent and hulking, monitors dark now, the whole camp tucked into that strange suspended quiet that comes after everyone has finally stopped performing competence for the day.

Miles slows before we reach the clearing.

I slow with him.

For a second, neither of us says anything.

Then Miles turns to me, and all the laughter fades into something softer.

“Come sleep with me.”

My heart does something stupid. Not a little flutter. A full, dramatic, romance-heroine collapse against the nearest fainting couch.

I blink at him. “Excuse me?”

His eyes widen. “Sleep. I meant actual sleep. I mean, obviously if you wanted not to sleep, I’d be extremely enthusiastic about that option too, but I was trying to be normal.”

“You were trying to be normal by inviting me into your twin-sized bunk three feet below mine?”

“Yes.”

“The bunk in the RV with the six-inch foam mattress?”

“Yes.”

“The bunk that’s literally surrounded by the coworkers we need to keep this—” I gesture between us—“a secret from?”

His mouth twitches. “Okay, when you say it that way…” His smile softens. “Come on. It’s late. Everyone’s asleep. We’ll wake up before them anyway.”

I glance toward the RV.

Toward the narrow windows. The dim outline of curtains. The people inside who have no idea that the team lead and the podcast girl just crossed a line so thoroughly there is no uncrossing it.