Chapter Ten Evan
She's quiet tonight.
Cassidy always fills a room. She hums when she moves, talks to herself when she's reading, bites her lip when she's concentrating and doesn't even realize it. She radiates energy and life in a way that makes even my old cabin feel brighter, warmer, more alive than it's been in years.
But tonight, she's all polite nods and smiles that don't quite reach her eyes.
I fucking hate it.
Because I know it's me.
It's what I didn't say this morning when Dylan asked if I wanted her along for the supply run. It's the way I've been treating her like a secret instead of the best thing that's happened to me in years.
It's what I'm too much of a coward to admit.
She's pulling away and I have no one to blame but myself.
We eat dinner at the kitchen table, me, her, Dylan, passing dishes, talking about insulation and delivery delays like my world isn't slowly falling apart across from me.
Dylan dominates the conversation, talking about the job, about mutual friends, about everything except the tension that's thick enough to cut with a knife. If he notices the way Cassidy barely touches her food, or the way she doesn’t respond to his stories, he doesn't mention it.
She doesn't touch me. Doesn't tease. Doesn't do any of the little things that have become second nature over the past week.
It wrecks me.
I've done nothing but push her away since her brother showed up, because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought keeping things simple would make it easier to let her go when the time came.
Because I'm a fucking idiot who doesn't know a good thing when it's staring him in the face.
But there's nothing simple about the way I ache for her when she walks out of the room. Her absence makes the air feel thinner and makes colors seem duller.
Nothing casual about the way I'm already mourning something I was too scared to fully claim.
"Evan?" Dylan's voice cuts through my brooding, and I realize he's been talking to me.
"Yeah?"
"I asked if you wanted another beer."
"I'm good." I gesture toward my barely touched bottle.
He studies me with the kind of look that says he's not buying whatever story I'm trying to sell. "You sure? You seem a little distracted."
Across the table, Cassidy's fork pauses halfway to her mouth, and for just a second, her mask slips. I catch a glimpse of hurt in her eyes before she looks away.
"Just tired," I lie.
Dylan's gaze shifts between us, but he doesn't push. Just nods and changes the subject to something safer.
After dinner, Dylan crashes early, claiming the need to be sharp for tomorrow's work. Cassidy stays behind to wash dishes, and I linger in the doorway, watching her.
She doesn't look up when she speaks.
"You don't have to hover."
The words are polite. The tone she might use with a stranger who was overstaying their welcome.
"I'm not," I say, though we both know it's a lie.
"Sure you are." She rinses a plate with more force than necessary. "That or you're practicing how to untangle yourself from me."
I step forward. "That what you think I've been doing?"
She sets the plate down in the drying rack and finally looks at me. "You tell me."
And there it is. The challenge I've been avoiding, the conversation I've been too much of a coward to have.
I don't answer right away. Because the truth is messy.
"I never meant to push you away," I tell her.
"Then why did you?"
The simple question deserves a simple answer, but nothing about this is simple. Nothing about the way she makes me feel is straightforward or easy to explain.
"Because I don't want to ruin this."
She crosses her arms, and I can see her building her own walls now. Protecting herself from whatever blow she thinks is coming.
"This?"
"You. Me. Everything." I run a hand through my hair, trying to find words for feelings I've never had to articulate before. "I've been on my own a long time, Cass. I don't always know how to... do this."
She studies me, and I feel naked under her gaze.
"You think I'm here to play house?"
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"You think I'm here for a break. A breather. A taste of something wild before I go back to my real life."
The words sting because they're exactly what I've been telling myself.
I want to deny it, but the words stick in my throat.
She blinks once, and I see something shift in her expression. A decision being made.
Then she steps toward me, slow and steady, like she's approaching a wild animal that might bolt.
"My real life doesn't feel real anymore, Evan. Not since I came here. Not since you."
She presses her hand to my chest, right over my heart, and I swear she can feel it hammering against my ribs.
"I don't want a fling. I want you."
Silence stretches between us, heavy with possibility and fear and the weight of everything we're not saying.
Then I say the thing I've been holding back for days. The truth that's been clawing at my chest, demanding to be spoken.
"I don't want you to leave."
Her breath catches, and I see hope flicker in her eyes.
I close the distance and pull her into my arms, holding her tight, burying my face in her neck.
"I don't know how to do this," I murmur against her hair. "But I want to try."
She pulls back just enough to look me in the eye, and what I see there takes my breath away. Not just desire or affection, but something deeper. Something that looks dangerously like love.
"Then let me stay. We can work this out."
And just like that, the thing I've been afraid of isn't so scary anymore.
She's not a storm that will tear through my life and leave destruction in its wake.
She's the shelter I've been looking for without even knowing it.