Chapter 20
J ericho
When Nora finishes her shift, she finds me waiting outside, leaning against my truck.
I hadn’t planned it—my feet just carried me here after spending the day fixing a broken waterline at Hunter’s lumberyard.
The October air just keeps getting colder, and I watch her breath cloud as she steps outside.
“Stalking me now?” she asks, but there’s a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Just happened to be in the neighborhood.” I push off from the truck. “Need a ride?”
She hesitates, glancing at her own truck parked a few spaces down. “I drove myself.”
“I know.” I shrug, trying for casual. “Thought maybe you’d want company.”
The truth is, I’ve been on edge since the incident with Dick. I don’t trust him to keep his distance, especially after dark. But I don’t say this—I don’t think Nora’s pride would appreciate the implication she needs protection.
She studies me for a moment, then nods. “I could use some company. But I’m driving myself home.”
“Fair enough.”
I follow her taillights through the growing dark, our cars winding down the empty road toward our street.
When we pull into our driveways, I half expect her to wave and duck straight inside, but she surprises me by lingering next to her mailbox, arms wrapped tightly around herself to ward off the evening chill.
“Hot chocolate?” she calls over.
I nod, taking my usual spot on the steps.
I can see the way she hesitates before heading inside, like she’s considering asking me in but decides against it at the last second.
It’s a relief, if I’m honest with myself.
I don’t know how it would end if we were inside the warmth of her house, with her smell surrounding me.
She disappears, and I’m left with the cold and my thoughts to keep me company.
The door swings open again after a few minutes, and she comes back with two steaming mugs in hand.
I accept the one she passes to me, our fingers brushing briefly in the exchange, a new kind of electricity sparking in the air between us.
“Thanks for helping me home,” she says, settling in beside me on the steps.
“I didn’t.”
She gives me a knowing look, like she’s caught me in a lie.
“Yeah,” I say after a beat, not really knowing what else to add to that.
It’s quiet for a moment—a comfortable kind of silence that feels like we’re both waiting for the other to break.
“So,” she starts, and I can tell a question is coming.
“So?” I draw out the word, watching her curiously over my cup .
“You’ve been moving around for work,” she says, but there’s no upward lilt to her voice, just a statement of fact.
I nod, knowing where this is headed. “Construction jobs take me all over. I was in Portland for a while, then New Hampshire. Then did a job in Little Hope.”
“And now Big Love,” she says.
“And now Big Love,” I echo, not mentioning the real reasons I landed here—far enough from Little Hope that no one would recognize me, but close enough because, embarrassing as it sounds, I’ve come to call Josie and Kenneth from there my friends.
“Your family’s always been here?” I ask, diverting attention from me.
“Four generations of Moons in Big Love.” She smiles, but I catch something wistful underneath, like she might have wanted to give the big world out there a shot.
“Have you ever wanted to leave?” I ask, more curious than I intend to sound.
She looks at me from under her lashes. “I have. And I did leave. Years ago, right after high school.”
“Why did you come back?”
I hear how blunt that sounds and wish I could take it back. I see the way it clouds her eyes and hunches her shoulders, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. “Long story,” she replies, looking away.
We both take another sip, letting the night settle around us. I don’t push for more, though I want her to keep talking. I want to know what happened to make her come back here, I want to know everything.
We switch to chatting about safer topics, the things you say when there’s too much else left unsaid.
She tells me about Moons’ Diner, the old-timers who come in every morning without fail.
I tell her about the jobs I worked in Boston when I first moved there, before I knew that city life wasn’t for me.
I leave out how I was hoping to build a new version of myself in that place, one who didn’t have to run from his past .
Her voice gets softer as the night stretches on, until she gives a big yawn and nearly drops her mug.
“I think it’s time we go to bed.” The words tumble out quicker than she meant them to.
My face must show my thoughts because her eyes widen, and she slaps a hand over her mouth. “I meant my bed!”
I chuckle, watching her scramble to explain.
“I meant I go to my bed, and you go to yours! You know what I meant!”
Her frustration is so amusing I can’t help but laugh again. “I got it, Nora.” But my voice sounds huskier than I mean it to. “By the way, I’ll be away for a couple of weeks.”
Her face falls. “Why?”
“I have a job in New Hampshire.”
“Okay.” Her tone is small, like she’s more upset than she wants to let on.
“I can call you.” I start to catch the edge of desperation in my own voice. “Only if you want it. You know.”
“Yes! You can call me. Or text,” she says, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “Or whatever.”
“I will.” I promise with more certainty than I feel while I pull my phone from my pocket and pass it to her. “Give me your number.”
“My number?”
“Yeah.” I shake the phone in the air. “Punch it in so I can call you.”
“Oh, right!” She takes the already unlocked phone with a plain, navy background and puts her phone number in. “I didn’t save it. I don’t know what you want to put in there.”
“Maybe your name?” I feel my lips twitching.
“Yeah, that.” She waves me off, turning away. But not fast enough for me not to notice her pinkened cheeks.
“Good night, Nora,” I say softly into her back.
“Good night, Jericho.”
As I walk away, I type in “Witch” into her profile and save her contact in my phone.