Chapter 17 #2
“I don’t know what to think,” I replied, keeping my voice even. “That’s the problem.”
The air between our windows felt different now. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the counter where her laptop sat, and that small involuntary movement was all the confirmation I needed.
“About this morning,” I said again, softer. Giving her the opening.
Her breath hitched—just enough for me to notice. “When we kissed,” she said quietly. “I didn’t pull away.”
My pulse kicked. “No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
Silence stretched between us, the kind that settles after something has shifted and neither person is sure how to step forward without disturbing it. The morning held still around us.
“Tonight,” she said finally. “We’ll talk tonight. About everything.” Something in her expression made it feel like a promise she was making to herself as much as to me.
“Tonight,” I agreed. Then, because I couldn’t leave it alone, “I heard something about a file. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop—I just couldn’t help it. Is someone messing with you?”
“No.” She answered too fast, caught herself, and let out a slow breath. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s not the same thing, Becca.”
Her jaw tightened just slightly. “A file was gone. That’s all it was. It could’ve been anything—a glitch, something I did by accident.” She paused. “But no. I don’t really believe that.”
“I know you don’t.” I stepped closer to the window, bracing my forearms on the sill so we were almost level. Close enough that if either of us leaned forward, the distance would close entirely. “So until you figure out what you do believe, I need to know you’re safe. That’s not negotiable.”
She studied me for a long moment, the early light catching in her eyes. “I am safe,” she said. “Matt’s five minutes away, you’re right there, and I’m not walking around scared. I’m not going to let myself do that.”
There it was—the stubborn edge underneath everything, the part of her that refused to be handled. I’d always loved that about her, even when it drove me to distraction. “Good,” I said. “I don’t want you scared.”
“I’m not,” she said. Then, softer, like she was being honest with both of us, “Not like last night.”
I let my gaze move over her face, looking for the cracks she might be hiding. All I found was strength. Fatigue, yes, but not fear. Not anymore. “If that changes,” I said, keeping my voice low and certain, “you call me first. Not Matt. Me. I’m closer, and I need you to promise me that.”
Something warm and complicated moved through her eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly.
“And if someone is messing with you—” I held her gaze, “—I want to know. I need you to tell me. If it’s Travis, I’ll handle him.”
She hesitated, and I could see her weighing it—how much to say, how much to hold back, how much of the careful distance she’d been keeping she was willing to let go of right now.
“I will,” she said finally. “Tonight. I was going to tell you everything last night, but I went to bed instead, and now I’m already almost late.
” A pause. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you sooner. ”
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Just tell me tonight.”
“I will. Oh. I’m going out with Harper and Elizabeth, so I’ll be late. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, actually. I was supposed to have poker night with my brothers. I’ll uncancel it, and we can meet back here tonight.”
“You don’t have to cancel things for me,” she whispered. “I don’t expect that of you.”
“Don’t you know by now that I’d rearrange my entire life for you?”
“Levi…”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It felt like something settling into place between us—not resolved, we weren’t finished talking everything through, but we were no longer held quite so tightly apart.
She held my gaze one beat longer than necessary.
Then she stepped back from the window, stretching the thread between us without quite snapping it, and moved around her trailer—grabbing her keys, tucking her hair back, slipping her phone into her back pocket.
She seemed back to normal. But I’d held her through a panic attack less than twelve hours ago, and normal was relative.
When she stepped outside, I did the same.
Gravel shifted under my boots as I circled around the narrow strip of space between our trailers. The morning air was cooler than it had been earlier, clean and sharp-edged, the kind that made everything feel more awake than you were ready for. She paused when she saw me rounding the corner.
“You don’t have to escort me,” she said, but there was a softness in it. Not irritation.
“I know,” I replied. “I’m still going to.”
Her mouth curved faintly, and she didn’t argue.
I walked with her the few steps to her car, not because of any invisible threat, but because I wasn’t ready to let her carry the weight of the morning alone.
She stopped by the driver’s side door and looked up at me, and up close I could see the faint shadows under her eyes, the way she was holding herself a little straighter than usual, doing the work of holding it all together so visibly that it made my chest ache.
“You’ll tell me if something changes,” I said quietly.
“I will.” She said it like she meant it.
“And we’re not dropping this,” I added. “Whatever’s going on. Promise me.”
She studied me for a second, and I saw it—the flicker of relief at not having to pretend everything was fine indefinitely, at being seen clearly by someone who wasn’t going to flinch at what they found. “I promise,” she said.
She opened her car door, then hesitated, like something else was sitting on the edge of her, waiting. Instead of saying it, she stepped forward—not enough to close the space completely, but enough that the warmth between us was impossible to ignore.
“Thank you,” she said, softer now. “For last night.”
“Anytime,” I replied.
And I meant it in every possible way.
She searched my face like she was measuring whether that was just a promise about emergencies or something bigger.
Maybe it was both. She slid into her car and shut the door.
I stepped back but didn’t turn away. I waited while the engine started, while she adjusted the mirror, while she looked up at me one more time through the windshield.
Our eyes held for a beat longer than necessary. Then she pulled out of the gravel drive and headed toward town.
I stayed where I was until her car disappeared around the bend. She’d said she was okay, and I believed her. But belief didn’t cancel instinct. Something had shaken her. Something had been deleted. Something had pushed her body into fight-or-flight in the middle of the night.
I heard a screen door creak open behind me.
“Are you planning to guard the gravel all morning,” Aggie called, “or is that just a temporary position?”
I turned. She stood on the small porch of her trailer, coffee mug in hand, housecoat tied loosely at the waist, gray hair pinned up in a way that looked careless but wasn’t. Aggie missed nothing in this trailer park. Not because she snooped. Because she paid attention.
“Good morning,” I said.
Her gaze flicked from me to Becca’s trailer, then back to me. “She left already?” she asked, even though we both knew she had.
“Just now.” I glanced back toward the bend in the road, the gravel already settled as if she’d never been there. “I didn’t realize I was on a timer.”
That almost got a smile. Almost. “She okay?” Aggie asked, cutting straight to it the way she always did.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s okay. She had a rough night, but she’s better this morning.” I paused. “Better enough, anyway.”
Aggie nodded once, like that tracked with something she already knew. “Girl’s always been better in the daylight. It’s the dark that gets loud.” She said it like it wasn’t new information, like she’d been watching that particular pattern for a while. “She tell you what’s going on?”
“Not everything,” I admitted.
“She’ll put it off forever if you let her. Doesn’t like feeling like a burden—hasn’t since she was a kid. She’ll trim things down to whatever size she thinks you can handle, hand you that, and hope you don’t notice what she kept back.” She took a slow sip of coffee. “You probably noticed.”
“I noticed,” I said quietly.
I’d always known that about her, not in those exact words maybe, but I’d seen it in a hundred smaller ways over the years.
The way she deflected help before it could fully land.
The way she carried things quietly until they got too heavy, and then pretended they weren’t heavy at all.
This morning, she’d handed me the trimmed-down version of whatever was going on with that file, and I’d taken it because pushing harder would only have made her pull further back.
“She’s not a burden,” I said. “She’ll never be a burden to me.”
“I know that. You know that.” Aggie let the pause sit for a moment. “Does she?”
That question settled deeper than I expected.
Because if Becca truly believed she was safe leaning on someone, she would’ve told me everything this morning.
She would’ve handed me the whole truth instead of something manageable.
The fact that she hadn’t wasn’t about trust, exactly.
It was about a habit she’d built so long ago she probably didn’t even notice she was doing it anymore.
“She needs someone who stays,” Aggie said, softer now.
“Not someone who tries to fix her or tells her what she should be. Not someone who disappears into the woodwork when things get rough. She’s had enough of those.
” She looked at me steadily over the rim of her mug.
“She needs someone who just—stands there. In the middle of all of it. And doesn’t make her feel like a project for doing so. ”
“I’m not trying to fix her,” I said, and I meant it down to the bone. I didn’t want to sweep in and rewrite her life or solve whatever she was carrying. I just wanted to stand close enough that she didn’t have to brace alone. “I never have been.”
“Good.” Aggie studied me for a beat, like she was checking for cracks in that.
“Because she’s always been better when you’re around, Levi.
That’s not nothing. That’s actually quite a lot.
” She set her mug down on the porch railing.
“So stick around. Even when she makes it difficult. Especially then.”
“I will,” I said. And I meant it in the simplest way possible.
I wouldn’t push her. I wouldn’t interrogate.
But I wouldn’t step back either. If she needed time, I’d give it.
If she needed space, I’d stand at the edge of it.
But I wasn’t going to disappear when things got complicated.
I’d done enough of that already, in my own way, and I was done with it.
Aggie studied me for another long second, like she was satisfied but didn’t want to make too much of it.
Then her mouth curved faintly. “Alright then,” she said, picking up her mug.
“I’ve got knitting to finish and coffee to drink, and neither of them are getting done out here.
” She turned toward her door, then paused without looking back.
“You’re a good boy, Levi. Always have been. ”
Praise from Aggie wasn’t handed out lightly. It felt less like a compliment and more like a reminder of who I was supposed to be.
I stood there a moment after her door closed, the morning quiet settling back around me, and thought about a girl who trimmed things down to a manageable size and handed you that, and hoped you wouldn’t notice what she kept back.
I’d noticed.
I was going to keep noticing.
She disappeared back inside, the screen door closing with a soft click. The trailer park felt quieter after that. Just the hum of morning settling into routine.
I stood there a moment longer, replaying her words.
She’s always been better when you’re around.
I didn’t take that as ego fuel. If anything, it made my chest tighten, and my heart beat faster. Because being good for someone meant responsibility. It meant showing up consistently. It meant not flinching when the easy version of things got harder.
I went back to my trailer and got ready for the day.
I wasn’t here because she needed rescuing. I was here because I loved her. The realization didn’t hit like a revelation. It felt more like something that had been true for so long I’d stopped noticing it.
Gravel shifted under my boots as I walked to my truck. I glanced once more toward her trailer before climbing in.
We were talking tonight. I’d make her comfortable enough that she’d tell me everything. About the proposal. About whatever file had gone missing. About the way last night had changed the air between us. Whatever it was, I wasn’t hovering halfway anymore. I was in her life for good, all the way.