He doesn't say anything. He just nods once and walks down the steps beside my brother.
I go back inside, pacing the living room, emotions churning.
I'm not stupid. I've seen the way he's been keeping his distance since Dylan showed up.
The way he's trying to forget what we are.
And I don't know if I can take it.
I don't want to be a secret. I don't want to be something he's ashamed of, something he has to hide from the people who matter to him. I've spent too much of my life making myself smaller for other people's comfort.
I don't want to be a memory, filed away under whatever narrative he's constructing to make sense of what happened between us.
I want to be his.
I want to build something real in this place that's become home in ways I never expected.
But wanting and having are two different things. And right now, it feels like Evan's already decided which one we're going to get.
By the time they get back that afternoon, I've made a decision.
One more night.
One more chance to see if this is real, for both of us.
If it's not? If he pulls away again or if he treats me like a guilty secret or a moment of weakness? I'll walk away with my head high and my heart intact.
Hopefully.
Tonight, we're going to figure out what this is.
One way or another.
Chapter Ten: Evan
She's quiet tonight.
Cassidy always fills a room. She hums when she moves, talks to herself when she's reading, bites her lip when she's concentrating and doesn't even realize it. She radiates energy and life in a way that makes even my old cabin feel brighter, warmer, more alive than it's been in years.
But tonight, she's all polite nods and smiles that don't quite reach her eyes.
I fucking hate it.
Because I know it's me.
It's what I didn't say this morning when Dylan asked if I wanted her along for the supply run. It's the way I've been treating her like a secret instead of the best thing that's happened to me in years.
It's what I'm too much of a coward to admit.
She's pulling away and I have no one to blame but myself.
We eat dinner at the kitchen table, me, her, Dylan, passing dishes, talking about insulation and delivery delays like my world isn't slowly falling apart across from me.
Dylan dominates the conversation, talking about the job, about mutual friends, about everything except the tension that's thick enough to cut with a knife. If he notices the way Cassidy barely touches her food, or the way she doesn’t respond to his stories, he doesn't mention it.
She doesn't touch me. Doesn't tease. Doesn't do any of the little things that have become second nature over the past week.
It wrecks me.
