Chapter 21 #2
I shook my head. “None. You’re bad dream repellent, too. I need to tell you something before we leave.”
He went still.
“About the sedan I saw last night. Matt got the camera footage from Elizabeth’s security company. The driver got out briefly—but it was a bad angle. We couldn’t see his face, but we recognized his jacket.” I kept my voice even. “It was Travis.”
Levi’s eyes held mine. Something moved through them. He was not surprised.
“He sent me the screenshot at five this morning.”
“And you’ve been standing here with that information since five,” he said.
“Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t that long. Forty minutes?”
Levi nodded once. “Next time, forty minutes is too long to stand in the kitchen alone with something like that. Wake me. Please.”
“Okay.” I breathed.
He held my gaze for a beat longer than the words required, like he was making sure I’d actually heard it and wasn’t just saying okay to end the conversation. I had heard it. I looked away first.
He disappeared into the bathroom while I finished my tea, and I stood in the kitchen listening to the ordinary sounds of someone else moving through my space—water running, the soft thud of the cabinet—and waited for it to feel strange.
It didn’t.
When he came back out, I held out a mug without asking.
He crossed the kitchen toward me to take it, closer than he needed to be in the small space, and his fingers closed over mine on the handle for just a second before he took it from me.
Not long. Just long enough. He didn’t comment on it. Neither did I.
We moved around each other in the kitchen with the quiet, instinctive ease of people who had known each other long enough to read the other’s next step.
He leaned against the counter. I found my bag.
I was reaching past him for my keys when his free hand came to rest lightly at my hip, steadying, just for the second it took me to reach around him.
I was glad I was looking at the counter, not at his face, because whatever expression I wore in that moment was not one I was ready to explain.
He rinsed his mug and set it in the sink.
I was pulling my jacket off the hook by the door when he stopped beside me.
He didn’t say anything. He just tilted my chin up with one finger, gently, and looked at my face for a moment the way he had on the gravel that morning—checking, making sure—his eyes moving over me with that quiet, steady attention that made it very hard to remember what I’d been about to do.
Then he let go, stepped back, and picked up his keys from the counter like it was nothing.
“I’m going to my place to change,” he said. “Be right back.”
I stood by the door after it closed behind him, jacket half on, one hand still on the hook, and stared at the middle distance for a moment.
I was going to need significantly more tea before I was equipped to deal with Levi Barrett this morning.
The door closed behind him.
I stood there for a moment in the sudden quiet, both hands wrapped around my mug, listening to his boots on the gravel outside.
The trailer felt like itself again, a little worn at the edges.
But different too. Like a room looked different after someone moved furniture, even if they put it all back exactly where it was.
I was not going to make this into a thing.
I washed both mugs. I brushed my hair. I changed my socks because I didn’t like the pair I’d put on the first time, and life was too short for bad sock choices. I told myself these were normal morning tasks and not a transparent attempt to keep busy while I waited for a knock at the door.
The knock came eight minutes later. I opened the door.
He’d changed into a clean Henley and dark jeans, jacket unzipped, hair still a little damp.
“Ready?” he said.
“Almost.” I pulled my jacket off the hook and checked my pockets twice out of habit. Keys. Phone. Then I remembered my car wasn’t there and felt briefly ridiculous.
Levi watched me figure it out without saying anything, which was somehow worse and better than if he’d laughed.
“You’re riding with me,” he said again with a grin. “No Elizabeth. No Matt.”
“I know,” I said, before my pride could make it complicated.
Something in his expression eased. He held my eyes for a beat longer, like he was making sure I meant it, and then he stepped back to give me room to lock the door.
I should’ve felt embarrassed about the fact that I was being walked to someone else’s truck like I was sixteen and grounded. Instead, I felt something else entirely. I felt supported. And that wasn’t something I was used to letting myself feel.
He glanced at me as we crossed the gravel together. “We’ll grab your car after work. Or I can have my brothers get it. We’ll see.”
“Okay,” I said, and then—before I could stop myself—added, “Thanks.”
His gaze softened. “Always.”
The word wrapped around my ribs and settled there, quiet and steady, like something I could lean against without falling.
He was already at the passenger side when we reached the truck, hand on the door, waiting.
I hadn’t asked him to do that. He just did it, the way he did most things—quietly, without announcement, like it had simply occurred to him that it was the right thing and so he’d done it.
I climbed in, and he closed the door behind me, and I watched through the windshield as he rounded the hood, unhurried, hands in his pockets, and I had approximately four seconds to get my face under control before he got in beside me.
He fastened his seatbelt. Turned the key.
The heater kicked on with a low rumble, and warm air began to fill the cab.
He glanced over at me before pulling out, just a quick look, checking I was settled—and then he winked.
Small, unhurried, like he knew exactly what kind of morning it had been and found it at least partly amusing.
I looked out the window so he wouldn’t see how much he was affecting me.
The truck moved out onto the road, and I sat with the warmth of the heater and the quiet between us and turned something over in my chest that I didn’t quite have words for yet.
Last night had changed something. I could feel it in the way the silence between us sat differently now, easier and heavier at the same time, charged with something that hadn’t been there before.
And the thing that made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with fear was that I didn’t want to go back to the way it was before.
I liked it. Whatever this was. I liked it.
The ride to the Stop & Go was quieter than usual, but not awkward. Not exactly.
The heater hummed low, pushing warm air toward my knees while Levi drove with one hand resting easily at the top of the wheel. Pine trees blurred past the windows, the early sun catching on frost that hadn’t quite melted yet.
I folded my hands in my lap and told myself not to stare at him as he drove.
Which, naturally, made me hyperaware of everything.
The way his jaw shifted when he focused.
The faint line at the corner of his mouth that deepened when he was thinking.
The quiet presence of him beside me, like this was simply where he belonged.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
I watched the trees blur past the window. “So are you.”
“I’m driving.” He said it easily, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a smile.
“You talk while driving all the time. I’ve been in this truck enough to know that.” I glanced over at him.
He reached over without looking and covered my hand where it rested on my knee, warm and unhurried, his thumb moving once across my knuckles before he put his hand back on the wheel like it was nothing. Like he just wanted to, and so he did. “You’re deflecting, by the way.”
I felt the warmth of it linger on my skin even after he’d pulled away. “You’re analyzing.”
“I’m checking in,” he said, softer now. “There’s a difference.” He let it sit for a moment, easy and undemanding, giving me room. “How are you actually doing this morning?”
I considered the honest answer. “Better than I should be, probably,” I said. “I woke up, and the world was still standing. You were there.” I paused. “It helped. More than I expected it to.”
He glanced over at me, something warm moving through his expression, and then back at the road. “Good,” he said quietly. Just good, nothing added onto it, but the way he said it made it feel like considerably more than one word.
I looked back out the window and let myself smile again, where he couldn’t see it.
The way he said it didn’t feel dismissive. It felt like he believed me and was prepared to handle it if I wasn’t. That certainty did something dangerous to my resolve.
As we pulled into the Stop & Go lot, my stomach tightened before I could stop it.
The sedan from yesterday wasn’t there. I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for it until I exhaled.
Levi noticed that too. He didn’t call me on it.
Instead, he reached over and brushed his knuckles lightly against mine on the center console.
Not a big gesture. Just enough contact to make me feel safe.
“I’ll walk you in,” he said.
I didn’t argue.
The bell above the Stop & Go door jingled as we stepped inside, and Elizabeth looked up from behind the counter like she’d been waiting for this exact moment all morning.
Her gaze flicked from me to Levi, then back to me again.
“Well,” she said dramatically, setting down her coffee like she was about to narrate a courtroom scene. “This is interesting.”
I rolled my eyes. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Oh, it’s a great morning,” she replied. “I love when the plot thickens before eight a.m.”
Levi gave her a polite nod. “Morning, Elizabeth.”