Chapter 16
Becca
“Welcome to Somebody Said in Sweetbriar… Some nights, the dark gets loud enough to drown out everything else. But if you listen close, there’s always someone nearby who knows exactly when to turn on the light—or climb through the window and sit with you in the dark.”
“Okay,” he said, voice soothing. EMT, firefighter, and all business professional hero. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t focus.
“Becca. Eyes.”
I forced myself to look at him. His expression was focused, calm. Not panicked.
“You’re breathing,” he said evenly. “It just feels wrong. Stay with me.” He settled beside me. One arm came around my back. The other pressed gently but firmly against my sternum. “Match my breath,” he said. “Try for me, sweetheart.”
He inhaled slowly.
I tried, but it ended up gasping instead.
“That’s okay. Again.”
His hand slid to the back of my neck, thumb moving in slow circles just below my hairline. His body was warm against mine.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice softer now, almost a whisper. “Come back to me, Becca, okay? Just stay with me. Remember that summer we were thirteen? The day we all took the inner tubes down to Miller’s Bend—you, me, Harper, and Jude?”
I blinked at him, confused, chest still heaving.
“Close your eyes if you can. Just listen to my voice. Feel it with me. Feel the sun on your face.”
I let my eyelids flutter shut.
“Start with what you can feel. Remember how the water felt when we first slid in? Cold at the beginning—sharp enough to make your breath catch—but then it turned cool and smooth, sliding over your skin like silk. Feel that now. The gentle pull of the current against your legs, slow and steady, carrying you forward without rushing. Nothing fast. Just floating. Safe.”
His thumb kept those slow, soothing circles at the back of my neck.
“Now picture the colors. See Harper’s bright pink swimsuit catching the sun every time she moved.
Your faded blue tank top—the one with the little tear on the shoulder—looking almost purple in the light against the green water.
The trees overhead were deep green, sunlight breaking through in bright gold patches that danced on the surface.
Yellow light, green leaves, blue water, pink and blue clothes.
Hold those colors in your mind. They’re still there. Remember them?”
My breathing hitched, but it was slower now.
“Smell it. Warm pine needles in the sun, that clean, earthy river smell—cool water and wet rocks and moss. And the faint coconut from Harper’s sunscreen she kept passing around. Feel it on your shoulders again, warm from the sun.”
A tiny tremor ran through me, but the tightness in my chest eased a fraction.
“Listen. Harper squealed when the cold hit. Jude laughed so hard he snorted. You laughed right there with them, bright and loud, the sound bouncing off the water. The soft lap of the river against the innertubes, the drip of water from someone’s hair. Safe sounds. Fun sounds.”
“Breathe with me.” His palm stayed warm and steady against my sternum. “In for four… hold… out for six. Come on. You got this.”
I followed. The edges of the panic softened.
“Feel where we are right now. My hand on your back—solid, warm, not moving. The mattress under you, the soft blanket. My heartbeat if you lean closer. I’m real, and I’m right here.
Not the river anymore, but still safe. Still us.
You’re right here with me, aren’t you, sweetheart?
Feel me. I’m here, and you’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you, not ever. Shh…”
My vision cleared. The room steadied. The crushing tightness eased enough that I could finally fill my lungs without choking on the air.
I turned into him without thinking and buried my face against his chest. He smelled like clean soap and warm skin and that faint trace of smoke that never quite left him after a shift. His arms closed around me completely.
“I’ve got you,” he said quietly. “I won’t let go. Breathe with me. You’re safe.”
He didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t push me for answers. He just held me like he’d been waiting for me to let him.
My hands curled against his chest. I could feel his heartbeat under my cheek. My body slowly matched it.
“Bad dream?” he asked after a minute.
I nodded.
“You want to talk about it?”
No.
If I told him about the laptop, about someone being inside my space, about the file being gone—then it would be real again. I couldn’t deal with it right now. I’d tell him later.
“I’m okay,” I whispered instead.
He didn’t believe me. I could tell. But he didn’t call me out. Instead, his hand moved slowly up and down my back.
“You know,” he said lightly, after a while, “this cross-window service is gonna require a punch card.”
A weak breath of a laugh left me. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Emergency access. Lifetime membership. Whenever you need me.”
I shifted just enough to look up at him in the dim light. He was trying to keep it easy. But his hand never loosened.
“I’ll always show up for you,” he added. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I know. You already do,” I whispered. “You always have…”
His thumb brushed along my jaw. “You good?”
I nodded. But I didn’t move away. “Stay,” I said before I could stop myself. “Please. Don’t go. I don’t want to be alone.”
There wasn’t even a pause. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He adjusted the blanket around us and settled deeper into the mattress, pulling me fully against him. Our legs tangled. His hand stayed at my waist like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there.
My heart was still beating fast. But it wasn’t panic anymore. It was awareness. Of how easily he fit. Of how long we’d known each other. Of the fact that even when I’d pushed him away years ago, he’d never actually stopped standing close enough to catch me if I fell.
His arm tightened slightly around me. The steady rhythm of his breathing brushed warm against my hair, anchoring me in a way I hadn’t realized I needed.
I’d spent so long trying to prove that I could stand on my own that I forgot how good it felt when someone stood with me.
Safety isn’t always walls and locks. Sometimes it’s the quiet certainty that if you fall apart in the middle of the night, someone will climb through a window without asking why.
That thought wrapped around me, and for the first time in days, my body wasn’t braced for impact.
I wasn’t waiting for the next sound, the next creak, the next thing to go wrong.
I felt safe. I fell asleep with his breath warm against my hair and his arm locked around me.
I woke slowly, body heavy and secure, wrapped in something solid that refused to let go.
For a heartbeat, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t move my left arm, why there was a broad, warm chest pressed to my back, and a heavy leg hooked over both of mine.
Then memory returned in soft fragments.
Window. His voice. Breathe with me.
I kept my eyes closed a second longer, savoring the feel of it before reality intruded.
Levi’s arm was draped firmly around my waist, palm spread wide against my bare stomach where my tank top had ridden up in the night.
His skin was hot against mine. One of his legs was thrown over both of mine, heavy, possessive in sleep.
His breath drifted, slow and warm, across the nape of my neck.
He was still asleep. I could tell by the deep, even rhythm of his chest against my back, the tiny twitch of his fingers against my skin, like he was dreaming but still holding on.
We’d shared space before—couch crashes, truck cabs, that ridiculous hammock pile-up at twelve. This was nothing like that.
I was in a thin white tank top and tiny sleep shorts that barely covered anything. He was in nothing but black boxer briefs. The realization hit us both at once when I shifted slightly, and his arm tightened instinctively. My bare thigh brushed the bare skin of his. Heat flared low in my belly.
I turned my face toward him just enough.
His eyes opened—clear blue, sleepy but instantly sharp. They moved over my face like he was checking for damage, making sure I was still okay.
Then his gaze slowly dropped, taking in the thin strap that had slipped off my shoulder, the way my tank clung to my skin, the expanse of my stomach under his palm.
Heat crawled up my neck and bloomed across my chest.
“Morning,” he said, voice rough with sleep, low enough that it vibrated through me.
“Morning,” I whispered back, softer than I meant.
Neither of us moved to untangle. His leg stayed hooked over mine. His hand flexed slightly against my stomach, thumb brushing once, deliberately, along the sensitive skin just below my navel.
My breath caught.
His eyes darkened as they returned to mine.
“I don’t hate waking up like this,” he murmured, almost under his breath.
My heart tripped hard. “Cross-window emergency services,” I managed weakly. “Very committed. Five stars.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, but his gaze never left mine. His thumb moved again—slow, small circles against my skin. “You scared me last night,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head once. “Don’t be. I’m glad I was close. It’s why I borrowed the trailer.”
His hand slid slowly up my arm, fingertips tracing my skin. Like he was memorizing me. I felt it everywhere. We were so close now. His breath mingled with mine. The faint rasp of his stubble when he shifted. The heat of his bare chest against my back.
“Do I need to dramatically retreat through the window?” he asked, voice teasing but thick.
I smiled. “Scale the gap like some kind of small-town Romeo?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re not Romeo.”
“Ouch.” A low chuckle rumbled from his chest.
“You’re better.”
He still hadn’t moved away. Neither had I. The cool morning air drifted in through the cracked window, brushing over my bare shoulder, but I wasn’t cold. Not with him this close.
A reckless thought slid through me. What if I just…