Chapter 7
Levi
Iwoke with the same prickle I get right before a call drops—skin-tight awareness that something was wrong even when everything looked quiet.
The townhouse was still except for the low hum of the heater and Jude’s faint snoring drifting down the hall.
Early light slipped through the blinds, gray and thin, the color of rain waiting to fall.
I lay there longer than I usually let myself, staring at the ceiling, listening to my own heartbeat, and trying to name the feeling coiled under my ribs.
It wasn’t anger. Not exactly. It was deeper. The kind of worry that settled in your bones when someone you loved was hurting and pretending they weren’t, when every instinct screamed to shield them, but pushing too hard would only make them run farther away from you.
Heaving out a sigh, I got up to start my day.
By midmorning, Sweetbriar was moving at its slow, familiar pace, and the fact that nothing ever changed wasn’t comforting today. I told myself I was just running errands when I parked near Violet’s. I told myself I wasn’t scanning every doorway, every sidewalk, hoping for a glimpse of her.
Then she stepped out, holding a takeout cup in one hand, tote slung over her shoulder, hair escaping its knot in soft wisps around her temples. The same stubborn mouth, the same warm eyes, but shadows lived under them now, deeper than last week. And she was jumpy.
I saw it the second she stepped onto the sidewalk, the quick scan left-right, the way her shoulders stayed high, braced, the tiny flinch when a delivery truck rumbled past two blocks away. She was wired.
I didn’t call out. Instead, I pushed off the wall and crossed toward her slowly, the way you’d approach someone who was already listening too hard to everything around them. I said her name quietly when I was close enough that it wouldn’t carry, giving her time to place me before I reached her.
She didn’t hear it.
She was somewhere else entirely, eyes moving over the street with that tight, watchful energy, and I was close enough to touch her before she registered me at all. I reached out and set my fingers lightly on her arm.
She startled anyway. A full-body flinch, sharp and involuntary, and she spun toward me with her breath already caught, hand jumping toward her bag before her brain caught up.
Then she saw it was me, and something went out of her face.
“Levi.” My name came out on an exhale. Half relief, half something she was trying to tuck back out of sight before I noticed it.
I’d noticed it.
Whatever she’d told herself was probably nothing—I could see clearly, standing right in front of her, that some part of her hadn’t believed it for a second.
Every protective instinct I had roared awake.
I huffed a laugh. “You look tired.”
“Rude,” she shot back, but the humor was forced.
“Observant,” I corrected gently.
“Well, I’m fine,” she said, already turning toward her car. “Totally fine.”
We reached her door at the same time. She unlocked it, then didn’t get in. Just stood there, fingers tight around the cup, eyes flicking once, twice, down the street like she was checking for something.
She was scared. And the sight of it—of her trying to hide fear behind quick smiles and faster steps—tore at me in ways I hadn’t felt since we were kids and she’d broken her arm falling out of the oak tree at the park.
Back then, I’d carried her three blocks to get help because she was too stubborn to cry.
I wished I could carry her now. Carry her away from whatever was freaking her out.
“You good?” I asked, softer this time.
“Yep.” Instant. Too instant. “Just busy.”
“With what?”
She shrugged, but her shoulders stayed high, defensive. “Life. Existing. Being charming and mysterious.”
“You’re very mysterious lately,” I said, trying to keep it easy. “And charming will always be your default.”
She huffed a startled laugh. “That’s what I’m going for.”
I leaned back against the car beside her, close enough to feel the warmth coming off her but not crowding. “You want to walk for a minute?”
Her grip on the cup tightened. “I really should—”
“Just around the block,” I said. “We can talk. No heavy stuff. I promise.”
She hesitated, eyes searching my face like she was trying to decide if the promise was safe. Then she sighed. “You say that like it’s reassuring.”
“Is it not?”
She studied me another beat, then shook her head with a small, reluctant smile. “You’re impossible.”
She started walking with me anyway, tossing her cup into a trash can as we passed it.
“You smell like smoke,” she said, after half a block.
“I’m a firefighter.”
“You always smell like smoke. Even off duty. Even when you haven’t been near a fire in days.” She slanted a look up at me. “It’s like it followed you home and decided to stay.”
“Some things do that,” I said.
She caught the edge in it and looked away, but the corner of her mouth moved. “That was almost smooth.”
“Almost.”
“About sixty percent of the way to smooth.”
“I’ll take sixty percent.”
She laughed, quietly and briefly, and something in my chest settled at the sound of it. We walked another half block in easy silence, the rain holding off for once, the street calm around us.
“Your hair’s doing that thing again,” she said.
“What thing?”
“That thing where it looks like you got dressed in the dark and just hoped for the best.”
“I did get dressed in the dark.”
“That explains a lot, actually.”
“You keep noticing things about me. I’m choosing to find that flattering.”
“I’m choosing to let you believe that,” she said, and there it was—that tone she had, dry and warm at the same time, the one that had always made sarcasm sound like something closer to affection.
Like the words meant one thing and the voice meant another, and you had to know her well enough to hear the difference. And I knew her well enough.
For a few minutes, walking beside her in the pale afternoon quiet, it almost felt like old times. Like nothing had changed between us, like the parking lot had never happened, like fifteen years of careful distance had just quietly dissolved.
Almost.
But I noticed the way she flinched when a truck backfired two blocks away. The way her eyes darted to every passing car, every shadow moving behind a window. The way she angled her body so she could see both directions at once, like she was walking point on a call she hadn’t told anyone about.
She was terrified of something.
And it was killing me.
Every time she startled, every time her gaze flicked away like she expected trouble to step out of the next doorway, something protective and primal rose in my chest. I wanted to put myself between her and whatever was making her look over her shoulder.
I wanted to demand answers—not because I had the right, but because the thought of her facing something alone made my skin crawl.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked quietly when we rounded the corner.
She smiled without slowing. “Levi.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She stopped walking then. Turned to face me fully. Up close, the exhaustion was unmistakable. Hollows shadowed beneath her eyes, tension tightened at the corners of her mouth, and the faint tremor in her fingers when she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I’m fine,” she said gently. “I promise.”
I didn’t believe her. Not for a second. Every instinct I had screamed that she was lying—not to hurt me, but to protect herself. She was scared, and she was trying to hide it behind smiles and sarcasm, and the sight of it tore at me in ways I hadn’t felt in years.
I lowered my voice. “You don’t have to promise me anything. I just—” I stopped, choosing words carefully. “If something’s wrong, I can help. I want to. Let me help you, Becca. Please.”
Her humor slipped, just a crack. Enough for me to see the fear underneath. Then the mask was back.
“Why do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Care,” she said, like it was half joke, half accusation. “So damn much.”
I shifted my weight, suddenly aware of how close we were standing, how much space she was trying to keep between us without actually stepping back. I tipped my head down the block. “Walk with me a little further.”
She fell into step beside me without arguing, which told me more than she probably intended.
We drifted away from the main drag, past the hardware store and the little insurance office with its perpetually crooked sign, rounding the long block that curved back toward the lot behind Violet’s, where a smoothie truck parked on weekday afternoons.
I could already see it idling at the far end, its hand-painted menu board bright against the grey afternoon.
“Hey,” I said softly. “We don’t have to do this standing on the sidewalk.”
She lifted a brow. “Do what?”
“Whatever this is.” I gestured between us. “Circling each other, not talking when we have so much to say. The pretending.”
Her mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “We’ve had a lot of practice.”
We reached the smoothie truck, and I stopped, studying the board. “What do you want?”
She blinked, as if she’d only just registered where we’d ended up. “Oh—I’m fine, I don’t need—”
“Becca.” I looked at her. “What do you want?”
A beat. Something in her shoulders gave just slightly. “Mango,” she said. “If they have it.”
They had it. I ordered two without making anything of it, paid before she could think to object, and handed hers over. She took it with the slightly dazed expression of someone who’d been running on adrenaline long enough that a small act of ordinary kindness had temporarily short-circuited her.
We leaned against the low brick wall at the edge of the lot, the town quiet around us.
“Have lunch with me,” I said. “Or dinner. Or coffee that turns into something longer. I don’t care. Please—” I exhaled. “Sit down with me for an hour. No distractions. No pretending everything’s fine when it’s not.”