Chapter 13 #2
“Sounds uncomfortable,” I say, because it does. I try—really try—to picture Baryn doing goat yoga or sitting in a meditation circle next to some guy named Rain who only speaks in affirmations, but I come up blank. He just doesn't seem like the silent retreat type.
Nora looks at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “That’s how he finds himself,” she says, with a dismissive wave of her hand, like that explains everything. “Personally, I prefer therapy in the form of curated shopping experiences. Spiritual enlightenment, but make it retail.”
She leans back on her palms, watching one of the goats chew on the drawstring of her mat bag.
“Oh, and there was this one time I tried Molly,” she adds, as casually as if she’s recommending a new face serum.
“Ecstasy makes everything brighter. Way brighter. The stars were beautiful that night—like, painfully beautiful—until it felt like they were falling from the sky and I couldn’t dodge them fast enough. ”
My eyebrows lift halfway to my hairline.
Though the fact that Molly is short for molecular will never not amuse me.
It feels like a mnemonic device I’d come up with at two in the morning and scribble in the margins of my notes in a desperate attempt to pass my chemistry test in the one watered-down chem course I was forced to take in undergrad.
She shrugs. “If anyone ever offers you the blue one with a Darth Vader-looking robot printed on it, do not accept. Trust me. That little Sith lord will mess up your whole night.”
“Very…centering?” I offer, because I genuinely have no idea what response fits this kind of story.
“Exactly!” she chirps, eyes wide and delighted, clearly missing the sarcasm altogether.
Nora beams as if she’s just imparted ancient wisdom instead of casually recounting a brush with psychedelic doom. One of the goats lets out a bleat and sprints in a tiny, pointless circle behind her, adding to the surreal energy of this entire situation.
Theo stretches beside me like this is completely normal. He’s either trying really hard not to laugh or he’s fully entered some altered state of his own. I can’t tell.
“I swear,” Nora says, sinking into a cross-legged position and shooing a goat off her mat, “people think I’m flighty, but I’m actually very grounded.”
“By goats,” I murmur.
“Exactly,” she says again, utterly sincere. “And crystals. And kombucha. And sometimes tequila, but only if it’s organic.”
I shoot Theo a look. He gives me a look back that says are you getting all of this?
A smaller goat sniffs his knee, its little nose twitching, assessing whether he’s made of food or just tolerable enough to chomp on anyway.
Theo pats the top of its head. He’s a statue of unearned composure, like none of this is remotely strange to him.
Like being surrounded by yoga mats and farm animals is just another day of the week.
And honestly? It’s kind of unfair. The man looks entirely at home, perfectly content to commune with nature and novelty like it doesn’t weird him out at all, grumpy as he normally is.
I, on the other hand, feel like I’ve been dropped into some bizarre dreamscape.
“Okay, okay!” Nora claps her hands together with terrifying enthusiasm. “Let’s crank the intimacy up a notch, shall we? Next pose: partner tree… followed by partner gratitude… followed by”—her face is lit with excitement—“the connection kiss.”
I straighten. “The what now?”
Nora waves it off, so unbothered. “Just a sweet little smooch to lock in all that bonding energy. Builds trust, deepens your root chakra. Don’t worry, it’s adorable.”
I risk a sideways glance at Theo, waiting for his reaction before I commit to my own.
His expression is blank at first, except for that twitch at the corner of his mouth. The twitch that usually means he’s about to say something either incredibly sarcastic or incredibly unhelpful.
Instead, he levels me with an amused look. “You gonna leave me hanging in front of the goats?”
Great. My insides pick now to act up.
“Fine,” I try to arrange myself into something that vaguely resembles tree pose when Theo steps in beside me to turn it into a partner situation. He’s so tall my hand lands somewhere around his elbow.
I’m sweating and it has nothing to do with the weather, because it’s not exactly hot outside.
“And where is the gratitude?” Nora sing-songs.
I stretch just enough to make it look like I’m really into participating, and tilt my face toward Theo’s, giving him my best attempt at enthusiasm. “I’m grateful you haven’t made a single joke about downward dog,” I say through my teeth.
Theo’s own smile eases across his face. “I’m grateful you didn’t sucker punch me when I said this would be relaxing.”
I snort. “I considered it. I’m still considering it.”
His smile unfurls into something so unlike him. It’s arrogant and ridiculously attractive.
His fingers press lightly against mine where our hands meet in the middle and it’s an unmistakable reminder that being this close to him never feels casual.
A pleasant reminder surfaces: oh right, we’re supposed to kiss now.
My stomach performs a full gymnastics routine.
This is fine. It’s fine.
I’ve kissed plenty of other humans before. I’ve kissed him before. And I survived all instances of those things happening.
Sure, Theo sometimes leaves my nervous system in shambles and triggers inconvenient identity crises, but I have never died from it. So, really, what’s one fake kiss for the sake of the investigation? It’s not like I’m going to feel anything.
Probably.
Maybe.
God, I need a sedative. Or a shovel to dig myself a hole and live in it forever. But I square my shoulders anyway, because I’m a professional. A professional who just happens to be making out with her fake boyfriend slash real-life bad decision in three... two...
Theo reaches out to steady me as we twist to face one another, one strong hand at my waist, the other catching my free hand like we do this all the time.
And then he looks down at me.
Why does he have to look at me like that?
There’s a heat behind his eyes that I want to pretend I don’t notice. But I do. The tension in his face gives him away; he’s trying to keep it together just as much as I am. The way his grip curls around my ribs. The way he’s not breaking eye contact, like he’s daring me to move first.
So I do.
I rise onto my tiptoes, and when he meets me halfway, I press my lips to his.
It’s meant to be quick. Innocent. A kiss that says we’re just humoring the goat yoga cult leader and will definitely laugh about this later.
But it doesn’t feel like a joke.
It feels like I’ve made a terrible, flammable mistake.
Because his lips are warm—soft in a way that shouldn’t feel this perfect—and my brain stops functioning somewhere between the first peck and the second.
Because there are two.
The first was all good-natured intent, the second like impulse, as if the brief taste of it wasn’t enough and his body came back for more before his mind could stop it.
Reality collapses down to the heat where our mouths meet.
My mind feels like it’s been unplugged. I can taste the faint remnants of his tea, smell the clean scent of soap and something inherently him.
My chest feels too small to contain it, the moment or the ache.
It’s just a kiss, technically. Barely even that. But the buzz from it settles somewhere in the pit of my stomach.
When I pull back, the space between us feels radioactive—charged with all the things neither of us should ever say.
I’ve never wanted to close the distance between us again more.
Nora claps again, snapping me out of it. Barely. “See? Wasn’t that precious?”
I clear my throat, focusing on a distant bale of hay like it might save me from spontaneous combustion. Theo doesn’t say anything, but his smirk is out in full force.
Smug. Bastard.
“So what brings you two out this afternoon? I didn’t even think to ask sooner.
” Nora asks, stretching forward into a pose that puts my entire flexibility—or lack thereof—to shame.
Moving on like she didn’t just flip my entire world upside down.
“You don’t strike me as the social-cards-with-the-elders type. ”
“Emily invited us,” I say. “We thought it’d be nice to join her.”
Nora’s eyes sparkle like she knows that’s a half-truth and doesn’t care. “Kat must’ve been thrilled.”
“She forgot we were coming,” I admit.
“Oh dear,” Nora sighs. “She’s been like that more and more lately. Floating around the house like she’s lost a part of herself. Thomas is worse.”
I glance up, my interest piqued. I don’t correct her that Katherine was far from ghostlike today. “Worse how?”
She shrugs. “Tense. Away a lot.”
“Do you still get to see them much with everything going on?” Theo asks, the question sounding more like concern than anything else.
“Often enough,” she says, picking a bit of goat hair off her leggings. “Our properties connect in the back. Kat and I used to do garden parties together. But that stopped after the—” she waves vaguely, “—last round of this.”
I nod my understanding. That’s one way to describe the murder of your father.
Her eyes flick to mine. “It was a tragedy. And tragedies are awkward things. They make people stop calling. Stop coming by. Everyone’s afraid of making eye contact after a family member dies or something.
It’s the fear that one moment of connection will push them into emotions they’re already drowning in. ”
Even the goats seem to pause, their little hooves barely audible in the grass.
Then, as if she’s physically shoved the mood out the door, Nora claps her hands. “But enough of that! I refuse to let death win on a Thursday.”
She fans herself with one hand. “God, it’s warm out here,” she says, laughing lightly. “Why did I wear a jacket?”
Before I can respond, she unzips it and shrugs it off, and that’s when I see it.
A braided leather cord sits snug against her throat, the ends knotted neatly at the back of her neck. My stomach drops so fast I nearly sway with it. It’s identical to the one Theo found in Katherine’s drawer.
Beside me, I sense Theo catch it too.
I try to keep my voice steady. “That’s a pretty piece,” I nod toward the lariat. “Where’d you get it?”
“Oh, this?” Nora touches it absentmindedly, her fingers tracing the braid.
“My dad gave them to all of us ages ago—me, Mom, Katherine. The grandkids too. Said they reminded him of the horses he used to train. They’re made from old reins, I think.
A little weird, right?” She laughs, oblivious to the way my pulse hammers harder with every word.
“But he said they were a symbol. Something about loyalty, family, and the ties that keep us intertwined with one another regardless of where we were in life. He was sentimental like that.”
Theo wraps his arm around my back, his fingers curving around my side as he pulls me in.
It probably reads as a casual gesture to anyone watching, but between us it’s heavy with implication.
I can practically feel the unspoken words between us: each member of this entire fucking family has the same goddamn cord.
Nora hums softly, still fiddling with the necklace. “Funny, isn’t it? We’ve all got one somewhere. I never see anyone else wear theirs, though. Mom’s is probably buried in one of her jewelry boxes.”
I set my expression carefully, throat dry. “It’s lovely,” I manage.
Nora laughs softly. “It’s not my style, that’s for sure, but it makes me feel close to him. My dad, I mean. Guess we all hang on to strange things after people die.”
She means it. I hear it in the way she speaks. The long-held, persistent grief that doesn’t look for reassurance anymore. My own has shifted shape so many times it doesn’t always recognize itself.
Nora exhales, rubbing her hands down the front of her thighs. “Anyway. Life goes on, right? Whether we’re ready or not.”
Sure fucking does.
Because if there’s one thing—one bright spot in this entire weird, goat-yoga-infused detour—it’s that we now know Baryn’s house is completely empty for the next few days.
And empty houses always come in handy when you’re hunting for secrets.