35. Norah
Chapter thirty-five
Norah
The air outside is cooler than when we went in, a light mist having moved over the lot while we were eating, softening the edges of everything: the parked cars, the tree line beyond the gravel, the glow from the bar’s windows.
Sound carries differently in mist. Closer. Muted.
I draw in a slow breath beside him. “It smells like rain.”
“Might be,” he says.
I watch him without making it obvious. The change is immediate when we step outside, his attention moving outward, scanning the lot, sniffing the air, tracking distances and angles.
Things I can’t see and probably wouldn’t notice even if I could.
He doesn’t consciously decide to scan the lot.
The instinct takes over the moment we’re outside.
I nudge him with my elbow. “You’re doing that thing again.”
He glances at me. “What thing?”
“The scanning,” I say. “You look like you’re calculating odds.”
His shoulders ease. “Old habit.”
“Does it ever turn off?”
“No,” he says. “But sometimes that’s a good thing.”
I slip my hand into his.
We move without hurrying, gravel shifting underfoot, the mist curling low around our legs. I lean into him slightly as we walk, my shoulder brushing his arm, and I don’t pull away. His presence stays solid beside me, and everything else steps back a pace.
“So,” I say after a moment. “How long do you think before we look for a space?”
“For your bookstore?”
“Yeah. Not one of those shops that tries to be everything.”
I think about what I see when I picture it.
Shelves that go floor to ceiling on the long wall.
A counter near the front with room for a lamp and a coffee maker and a small stack of staff picks—my picks, of course, because I will be the staff.
A corner with two comfy mismatched chairs, because matched chairs in a bookshop are a red flag. Somewhere people actually want to stay.
He glances at me, and I see it: the recognition.
“You already have the whole thing planned,” he says.
“I have ideas,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
“There really isn’t.”
“Afternoon light. Non-negotiable.”
His voice is easy, like he’s been thinking about this too. “There’s a space on the main street in Paxton. Above the hardware store. Empty for a while now. Good light.”
I give him a hard look. “You’ve already checked it out. Did you look online?”
“I made a few phone calls,” he says.
I laugh and lean into his shoulder. His arm comes around me, and we keep walking.
“I want a life that feels steady,” I say, more quietly now. “Not temporary. Not like we’re waiting for something else to happen. A home that’s ours.”
His hand tightens around mine. “Then that’s what we’ll build,” he says.
“You say that like it’s simple.”
“It is,” he says. “The rest of it isn’t. But that part is.”
I look up at him, trying to read the certainty in his face, trying to understand what he wants to give me and what he’s still holding back.
“I’m happy,” I say.
He slows. Stops. Turns toward me as the mist lands on our jackets, a gleaming spray in the diffused bar light.
For a second, I just look at him. At how his eyes hold mine with absolute confidence.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, and I rise onto my toes and kiss him.
It isn’t rushed. It isn’t uncertain. There’s a warmth to it I don’t question, my hand sliding up along his chest, his settling on my lower back and drawing me in. The world narrows down to only the two of us.
“Still okay with the plan?” I ask.
He lets out a quiet breath, his forehead dipping toward mine. “Yeah,” he says. “I am.”
I let out a small, satisfied smile.
“Good,” I say. “Because I’m not changing my mind.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
We stand there a little longer, neither of us rushing the moment back into motion. I think about Larkin three hundred miles south, about Penny who worries about me. I think about how none of this feels like a loss from where I’m standing. It feels like a beginning.
Then reality presses gently back in. He reaches into his pocket for his keys. The truck sits a short distance away, drops of mist clinging to the hood and windshield. He hits the unlock button and the headlights blink once.
We walk toward the vehicle through the lot.
The mist is thicker now near the tree line, drifting low across the ground, and the bar noise has faded to nothing in this far corner of the parking lot.
His hand is warm in mine, the slight roughness of his palm, the steadiness of his grip welcome sensations, and I think about this lot, this mist, this hand, this ordinary walk across one hundred feet of gravel that feels like the most significant thing I’ve done in years.
Because it’s the end of a good evening, and that is everything.
The truck is ten feet away.
Five feet.
He steps ahead of me toward the passenger door, reaching for the handle.
“Hey.”
The voice comes from behind us, and I feel his posture shift in the half-second between the word arriving and when it catches up to me.
He turns slowly.
The man steps out of the low mist, his outline resolving before his expression does.
Same build, same face, the same Larkin hat.
But his eyes are different from when he left the bar.
Whatever the cold air did to him, it finished what the alcohol started.
Whatever courage alcohol gave him earlier has been replaced by cold focus.
He’s been out here for a while. He’s been thinking.
“You need something?” Silas says. His voice is level.
“We’re not done,” the man says.
I go very still.
Silas moves his weight forward slightly, positioning himself between the man and me, claiming the space.
I stay where I am, watching the man decide.
His shoulders are tight, and his jaw is set.
His right hand is loose at his side with the deliberate looseness of someone ready to move the instant he needs to.
He’s already decided. He starts to cover the distance.
“Yes,” Silas says. “We are.”
The man takes another step forward.
Silas reads it. I can see him reading it—the slight correction to the left, the attention sharpening past the point of conversation. He’s calculating. He’s fast. In another second he’ll have it.
He needs one more second.
He doesn’t have one more second.
I see the arm move before Silas does, the shoulder dropping, the intention telegraphed in the angle unmistakable now, no longer ambiguous. My body decides before my brain does.
I shove Silas. Hard. Both hands flat against his back. With everything I have.
The sound that follows is very loud and very close. Everything else fades away.