The paper burned a hole in her pocket all day.
Even after she went home and collapsed face-first on her bed without bothering to draw the blackout curtains, she could *feel* it there, ghost impression against her hip long after she’d stripped off her apron and tossed it over the back of the chair.
She lay on her stomach in the dim light, the cheap ceiling fan humming above her, the sounds of morning traffic drifting up from the street below. Her little one-bedroom was as familiar to her as the diner—secondhand couch, wonky coffee table, one bookshelf jammed with paperbacks and old textbooks and a framed photo of her and Gabi as girls, dirt on their knees and ice cream on their mouths.
Normally, this was when her brain would shut down in self-defense. Shut blinds, shut eyes, shut *everything*.
Instead, it spun.
Alastair Gray.
The name sat in her head like a stone. Heavy. Slightly ridiculous. The kind of name of a man who’d always known what fork to use and how to talk to senators. Not the guy who sat in her booth and asked if she missed the sun.
She dragged herself upright with a groan, padding into the tiny kitchen in just a tank top and cotton shorts. The tile was cold under her bare feet. She flicked on the electric kettle more out of habit than desire; more caffeine was the last thing she needed.
Her apron hung where she’d dropped it. The bulge in the pocket looked obscene now. Threatening.
“You’re being dramatic,” she muttered to herself, yanking it down.
She sat at the table and pulled out the square of paper.
For a second, she just stared at his handwriting.
It was neat. Precise. A little old-fashioned, like he’d actually learned cursive instead of half-print, half-scrawl. No flourishes. Just clear letters. Efficient.
ALASTAIR GRAY
It was like reading the credits of a movie she hadn’t realized she’d been acting in.
Her eyes drifted to the line he’d scrawled beneath.
*Just in case you decide I’m worth saving from myself.*
Something thick and unwieldy tightened in her chest.
“Idiot,” she whispered. “You absolute idiot.”
Him or her, she wasn’t sure.
Her phone buzzed on the table, making her jump. The screen lit up with GABI across it.
Of course.
She hesitated, then swiped to answer.
“Hey,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.
“Hey stranger,” her sister’s bright, West Coast-tinged voice chimed back. “You done sleeping through your life yet, or should I call back in three months?”
Rae snorted, half a laugh, half an exhale of pure exhaustion.
“I am up,” she said. “Barely.”
“How’s Night of the Living Diner?” Gabi asked. “You met any new vampires? Werewolves? Hot hitchhikers with tragic backstories?”
Heat shot up Rae’s neck.
Her eyes flicked, involuntarily, back to the name on the table.
“You have no idea,” she muttered.
“What?” Gabi said. “You cut out. Reception in Nowhere, PA still sucks, huh?”
“It’s fine,” Rae said quickly. “Same old. How’s Silicon Fairyland?”
“Insane,” Gabi said. “We just closed our Series B. I say ‘we’ like I had anything to do with it, but hey, I designed the slide deck, so clearly I’m critical to the operation.”
“You *are*,” Rae said automatically. “They’d be lost without your gradient choices.”
“Exactly.” There was a rustle, then Gabi added, “Listen, I only have a sec. I’m grabbing a Lyft to the office. But I wanted to check in. You’ve been… quiet.”
Rae stared at the paper.
Just in case…
“I’ve been… busy,” she said.
“With what?” Gabi asked. “Still talking about taking that nursing prerequisite? Or was that just last-month Rae before she turned into a fossil?”
Rae chewed the inside of her cheek.
“I looked at the course catalog,” she said.
“And?” Gabi prodded.
“And then Mom’s medical bills showed up in my mailbox again with a lovely Past Due stamp,” she said. “So, you know. Life.”
Gabi exhaled, the sound full of long-distance helplessness.
“I can help with those,” she said. “You know I can, right? I keep telling you—”
“I know,” Rae cut in. “I’m working on it.”
Silence pulsed down the line.
“This isn’t… martyrdom points, you know,” Gabi said softly. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for staying. You did *everything* for her, Rae. You’re allowed to want something else now.”
The words hit a bruised place.
Rae swallowed.
“I *am* going to do something else,” she lied. “Eventually.”
“Eventually’s a slippery bastard,” Gabi said. “Okay, I really gotta go. But hey—one more thing.”
“Yeah?” Rae said.
“There was a news alert on my phone about that missing finance guy,” Gabi said. “You know, Alastair Something? Mom’s old boss at the hospital used to read about him in Vogue like he was a celebrity. Anyway, they upped his reward. Half a million now. Can you imagine?”
Rae’s heart stuttered.
“Huh,” she said carefully. “Wild.”
“Rich people drama,” Gabi sighed. “Must be nice to have the luxury of vanishing.”
“Maybe he didn’t feel like it was a luxury,” Rae said softly, surprising herself.
Gabi snorted.
“Oh please,” she said. “Men like that always land on their feet. We both know if someone like *us* disappeared, the cops would be like, ‘She probably needed space.’”
Rae thought of the way Noah’s shoulders had knotted that night the storm rolled in. The way his voice had broken on *I can’t breathe there*.
“Not always,” she murmured.
“What?” Gabi asked.
“Nothing,” Rae said. “Just… be careful out there, okay? Uber or… whatever dystopian app you’re using for rides these days.”
“Look at you, worrying,” Gabi said affectionately. “Love you, Rae.”
“Love you too,” she said.
When the call ended, the apartment fell quiet.
Rae stared at the name on the paper until the letters blurred.
You could change everything with ten digits and a conviction.
Change it for him.
Change it for her.
Change it for people she’d never even met, multi-million-dollar investors who probably slept less than she did.
Half a million dollars.
She pictured it as numbers on a screen. Then as physical stacks of cash, green and endless. Then as… options.
She could pay off every bill with one swing. Fix the car. Replace her fraying shoes. Enroll in classes and not panic over the textbook prices.
She could quit the diner.
That last one made her throat tighten in ways she hadn’t expected.
Quit the diner.
Walk away from the humming neon. The clink of ceramic. The steady, anchoring weight of her tray in her hands.
Walk away from Mace, with his gruff advice and dinosaur-phone.
From Bob, and his quiet loyalty under all the bluster.
From Jenna’s flighty chatter. From Kelsey’s tired jokes.
From the photo of her mother in the break room, taped to the wall above the ancient time clock.
From… Tuesdays.
From the corner booth.
From the way the world tilted, just a little, whenever Noah walked through the door.
Her gut churned.
If she called, she’d be doing the “right” thing, according to the world. She’d be helping a distressed family find their prodigal son. She’d be a responsible citizen. She’d be… rewarded.
She’d also be ripping away the one place that man had found to just… *be*.
“If nobody ever chose you,” she muttered to herself, “would you still believe you deserved to choose yourself?”
The kettle clicked off, the kitchen filling with gentle white noise.
She ignored it.
Took out her phone instead.
Her thumb hovered over the messaging app.
She didn’t remember saving his number, but of course she had. The second she’d unfolded that paper, her fingers had moved on their own, tapping it into a new contact before her brain caught up.
NOT NOAH, she’d labeled it, in a knee-jerk stab at honesty.
She opened the thread.
It was empty.
Printer-paper white. Patient.
Waiting.
She typed:
> You’re an idiot.
Then she stared at it, horrified.
She deleted the message.
Rewrote.
> How’s the weather wherever you drove off to?
Too friendly.
Deleted.
> I haven’t called.
Too… everything.
Deleted.
She locked the phone and dropped it on the table like it had burned her.
“Coward,” she whispered to herself.
Not because she hadn’t called the number on the news.
Because she *wanted* to text him.
That was the worst part.
Needing to hear from him. From the man with two names and no home, who’d put his fate in her pocket like it was the lightest thing in the world.
Her fingers drifted toward the folded paper again.
Just in case.
It would be so easy.
Dial. Wait. Explain.
*I think I know where your son is. He comes in on Tuesdays for pie. He doesn’t want to come home.*
She snorted out a humorless laugh.
Yeah, *that* would go over great.
She shoved the paper into the back of a drawer, under old takeout menus and a tangle of forgotten charger cords.
Out of sight.
Not out of mind.
She crawled back into bed and yanked the sheet over her head like she was eight again.
Sleep, when it finally dragged her under, was full of booths and empty plates, her phone ringing with an unknown number she couldn’t bring herself to answer.
***
The week between Tuesdays stretched in strange ways now.
Enough had changed that everything else felt slightly out of focus.
Customers came and went. She laughed, rolled her eyes, teased Mace, dodged Jenna’s questions about TikTok. She watched snow melt into gray slush in the parking lot and wiped muddy footprints from the floor.
She pretended she wasn’t counting days.
“What’s with you?” Kelsey asked Thursday night around three, watching Rae pour coffee like she was dissolving into it. “You got that look like when you find out your ex is engaged on Facebook.”
“I don’t have an ex,” Rae said. “Not one who’d stay in a relationship long enough to get engaged, anyway.”
“Then what is it?” Kelsey prodded. “You seem… distracted. And—no offense—a little constipated.”
“It’s… nothing,” Rae said.
Kelsey tipped her head.
“Nothing with a capital N,” she said. “You fight with Gabi?”
“No.”
“You and Bob finally snap and declare your forbidden love?”
Rae snorted.
“God, no,” she said. “My type is upright posture and emotional unavailability, not grease stains and passive-aggressive coupon clipping.”
“Then what?” Kelsey persisted.
Rae chewed her lip.
She’d always been careful about drawing lines between herself and the diner regulars. It was easier to be the listener, the dispenser of coffee and sympathy, than to open up her own mess.
But her skull felt too full.
“If I told you something,” she said slowly, “would you… judge me?”
Kelsey blinked.
“I literally once told you I hooked up with a guy in the back of his landscaping truck because his housemate was home,” she said. “I think you’re safe.”
Rae smiled weakly.
“Right,” she said. “Okay. So, hypothetically—”
“Oh boy,” Kelsey said. “This is gonna be good.”
“—if you knew someone who was…” She hesitated. “Let’s say… not where they’re supposed to be. And a lot of other someones really wanted them back. And they were offering…” Her throat tightened. “A lot of money for any info.”
Kelsey’s brows shot up.
“Like… witness protection levels?” she said. “Or… wanted criminal?”
“Not criminal,” Rae said quickly. “I don’t… think.”
“Okay, so… runaway groom?” Kelsey guessed. “Missing influencer? Secret prince?”
“Why are all your references Netflix shows?” Rae muttered.
“Because I have taste,” Kelsey said. “Anyway. You’re talking about that finance guy, aren’t you?”
Rae’s pulse skipped.
Kelsey leaned forward.
“Did you see him?” she whispered. “Is he here?”
Rae swallowed.
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
“You *didn’t not* say it,” Kelsey countered. “Oh my God. Is he? Is he, like, under the counter? Sleeping in the pantry?”
Rae glared.
“Use your indoor voice,” she hissed. “And your indoor imagination. Hypothetically, what would you do?”
Kelsey sobered.
“Depends,” she said. “On why he left. On whether he’s… in danger.”
“He says he left because his life was… killing him,” Rae said, voice low. “Slowly. That his family’s… a lot. That if he went back, nothing would change.”
Kelsey’s expression softened.
“That sounds… familiar,” she said quietly.
Rae knew she was thinking of her own parents. Of the tiny house twenty minutes from here, full of religious guilt and arguments about every little thing.
“And the money?” Rae pressed.
Kelsey blew out a breath.
“That’s the shitty part,” she admitted. “Because half a mil? That’s not… whatever-money. That’s…” She gestured helplessly. “Everything-money.”
“Yeah,” Rae said hoarsely.
“You could get out,” Kelsey said. “Like, actually out. Apartment paid off. School. A job with benefits and coworkers who don’t talk about carburetors at three a.m.”
“And he’d get… dragged back,” Rae said. “TV cameras. Press. Back to the thing that made him run in the first place.”
“So he stays gone,” Kelsey said. “His family keeps hurting. You keep… whatever-this-is. And you keep living paycheck to paycheck and pretending you like it.”
Rae flinched.
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“Nothing ever is,” Kelsey said. “Look… if you’re asking what *I* would do?” She sighed. “I don’t know. If it was my dad on the news… I’d want someone to call. No matter how fucked up we are.”
Rae looked down at the coffee pot in her hands.
“But if it was me,” Kelsey added, “on the run from… whatever my life turned into, and I found the one place I could breathe again? I’d want… a minute. Before the world dragged me back.”
Their eyes met.
“No wrong answer,” Kelsey said softly. “Just… different kinds of hurt.”
Rae swallowed.
“What if the person deciding… doesn’t even know what the fuck they’re doing?” she asked.
“Then maybe that person needs to stop making the decision alone,” Kelsey said. “Tell someone. Make it less heavy. Even if that someone is just…” She tapped Rae’s name tag. “Yourself.”
“You’re supposed to be the one I give refills to, not life advice,” Rae muttered.
“Multi-talented,” Kelsey said. “You should try it.”
Rae smirked.
Then the bell over the door chimed, and the moment blew away in the draft like napkins.
***
Tuesday crept closer.
Rae’s nerves threaded tighter each day.
By Monday night, she’d worn a path in her mind, pacing it over and over.
Call. Don’t. Call. Don’t.
She’d pulled the paper out twice. Dialed six digits. Hung up.
Her dreams were a whiplash of extremes.
In one, she dialed and the Grays sent her a bouquet and a check and a handwritten note from the mother thanking her for bringing her baby home.
In another, she dialed and Noah looked at her across the booth as cops snapped cuffs on his wrists, betrayal carved into every line of his face.
In a third, she never called and years later she saw his face in a news story again—this time with a black border around it.
She woke from that one shaking, her hand clutching her chest.
By the time she buttoned her uniform and tied on her apron Tuesday night, she was a live wire.
“You look like you wrestled a raccoon,” Bob said when she walked in.
“I feel like one,” she grumbled.
He studied her a second longer than usual.
“You sure you’re good to work?” he asked.
“Fine,” she lied.
He nodded slowly.
“Yell if you’re not,” he said.
She moved through the first hours of the shift in a haze.
Her body did what it always did.
Muscle memory.
But every time the bell over the door chimed, her heart lurched.
“Relax,” Jenna said, slurping a milkshake between tables. “You’re twitching like a squirrel on Red Bull.”
“Fine,” Rae said, teeth tight.
1:45.
1:50.
1:57.
*He might not come,* some petty, panicked part of her thought. *He might have driven to Florida and found another diner and another waitress who doesn’t know his name and this will all be… over—*
The bell chimed.
She didn’t turn.
She finished lining up coffee mugs on the warmer. Counted to five.
“Sit wherever,” she called, voice almost steady.
Boots squeaked on linoleum.
She heard the faint scuff of a chair in the far corner.
Her skin prickled.
She inhaled, squared her shoulders, and turned.
He was there.
Same booth. Same jacket. Same hands curved around the same mug she hadn’t yet filled.
But everything in him looked… different.
Sharper.
His eyes swept the diner in one slow, practiced pass, cataloging exits, faces, threats.
When they landed on her, something in them eased.
“Hey,” he said.
Her chest clenched.
“Hey,” she echoed.
She grabbed the coffee pot like it was a prop and walked over.
“Usual?” she asked.
“Please,” he said.
She poured.
Silence hummed between them, thick with the weight of a hundred unasked questions.
“Rough week?” he asked carefully.
She gave a short laugh.
“You tell me,” she said.
His mouth tightened.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fair.”
“How many times did you think I’d call?” she asked, surprising them both.
His eyes met hers.
“Too many,” he said quietly. “Enough that I sat outside a public library yesterday and thought about going in to check the news just so I’d know, one way or the other.”
“You didn’t?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I figured if I was going to get yanked back, I’d rather be surprised,” he said. “Less… anticipation that way.”
“You giving me a lot of credit,” she said. “For someone who barely knows me.”
His gaze softened.
“I know enough,” he said.
She snorted.
“You know my coffee order,” she said. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I know you broke your own no-questions rule the night of the storm,” he said. “I know you stayed and listened when I tried to explain something I’m not sure I even understand. I know you didn’t look at me like I was a headline.”
Her throat thickened.
“You also know I thought about it,” she said. “About calling. A lot.”
He smiled, small and rueful.
“I’d have been more worried if you hadn’t,” he said. “You’d be a bad… person,” he added lamely. “If you didn’t.”
“Bad waitress,” she corrected. “We’re supposed to be nosy. It’s in the handbook.”
He huffed a laugh.
“So… you didn’t,” he said. “Call.”
“Not yet,” she said.
Something like relief flickered in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“Stop,” she said.
He tilted his head.
“Stop what?” he asked.
“Thanking me,” she said. “It makes it sound like I did this… for you. Like I made a choice that was about… us.” She winced on the last word.
He caught it. Of course he did.
“That’s… not what it is?” he asked, just as quietly.
She blew out a breath.
“It’s about me not being ready to… be that person yet,” she said. “The one who calls. The one who makes… that big of a dent in somebody else’s story.”
“You already have,” he said.
A shiver ran through her.
“Yeah, well,” she said gruffly. “I’m still figuring out how I feel about that.”
He nodded slowly.
“That’s fair,” he said again.
They fell into silence.
Around them, the diner hummed in its usual low-key way.
On the TV, a commercial called out for people to claim their car accident settlements.
In the kitchen, Bob cursed at the pancake batter.
A light bulb flickered over booth six.
Ordinary.
Except nothing inside Rae felt ordinary anymore.
“You talk to your family this week?” she asked, because if she stayed inside her own head one more minute she was going to explode.
He blinked, surprised.
“I called my brother,” he admitted.
“How’d that go?” she asked.
He made a face.
“How do you think?” he said.
“Yelling?” she guessed.
“On his part,” Noah said. “I just… let him.”
“What’d he say?” she pressed.
“That I was an asshole,” he said. “That Mom cries every night. That Dad is… oscillating between rage and… PR mode. That there are missing posters with my face in places I’ve never even been.”
Her stomach twisted.
“And you said… what?” she asked.
“That I’m… okay,” he said. “That I’m… not lying in a ditch. That I’ll… figure it out.”
“And he… believed you?” she asked.
He hesitated.
“He believed I’m alive,” he said. “I don’t know if that helped, or made it worse.”
She thought of Gabi. How she’d sounded on the phone. That mixture of love and exasperation and distance.
“You didn’t tell him where you are,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
Noah shook his head.
“He’d tell them,” he said simply. “He’d try not to. He’d promise. But he would. One fight. One guilt trip from my father. It’d come out.”
“And you’re not ready for them to know,” she said.
His gaze flicked to the window. To the neon sign.
“I’m not ready for them to know about this place,” he said. “That there’s somewhere that… makes me feel…”
“Human?” she suggested.
“Smaller,” he said. “In a good way. Like I’m not the center of some… machine. Just another guy in a booth.”
“‘Just another guy’ doesn’t tip like you,” she said dryly.
He smiled, barely.
“Maybe I’m overcompensating,” he said.
“Maybe you have a guilt complex,” she said. “Has your therapist weighed in on that?”
“Have *you*?” he countered.
She rolled her eyes.
“You can’t afford my rates,” she said.
“Try me,” he said.
The air between them thickened.
She stepped back, breaking eye contact.
“Pie?” she asked, too loudly.
“Yes,” he said, after a beat. “Please.”
She took the order to the pass, aware of him watching her.
“Damn, you two got serious faces on tonight,” Bob muttered as he slid the pie into the warmer. “He finally confess he’s a secret agent or just a bad tipper in disguise?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Be careful,” Bob added under his breath. “Rich boys are fun to look at. Less fun to clean up after.”
She stiffened.
“He’s not—” she started.
“Not what?” Bob asked.
“Not… that,” she said lamely.
Bob lifted a brow.
“You sure?” he asked.
She thought of the paper in her drawer. The scrawl of a name worth half a million dollars to someone else.
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m… figuring it out.”
Bob studied her for a second.
“You got good judgment,” he said finally. “Don’t talk yourself out of it ‘cause you’re bored.”
She wished, suddenly, *desperately*, that this *was* about boredom. About a hot stranger and late-night banter and nothing more.
Instead, it was about choices that felt way too big for a girl who still sometimes messed up orders when she was tired.
She carried the pie back over.
He looked up as she set it down.
The smell of warm cherries and sugar puffed up between them.
“You ever gonna try something else?” she asked. “Apple. Chocolate. Something that doesn’t permanently stain the plates pink.”
“I like what I like,” he said.
“That your life motto?” she asked.
His lips twisted.
“Used to be,” he said. “Now… I’m trying to figure out what I like that isn’t… pre-approved.”
“Being missing seems to be high on the list,” she said.
He winced.
“You really know how to make a guy feel good about his choices,” he said.
“Somebody has to,” she said. “All your friends on the news seem a little too excited about your ‘harrowing ordeal.’”
He huffed a laugh.
“Some of those ‘friends’ would sell my left kidney if it boosted their fund a basis point,” he said.
“You have weird friends,” she said.
“I have the friends my job came with,” he said. “Not the same thing.”
“You have any real ones?” she asked, genuinely curious.
He picked up his fork, turned it between his fingers.
“One or two,” he said. “From before.”
“Before what?” she asked.
“Before I became… useful,” he said.
The word lodged in her.
Useful.
“Useful to who?” she asked.
“To my father,” he said. “To the firm. To… people who like having someone to point at and say, ‘See that guy? He makes us money.’”
“And now you don’t,” she said.
“Now I cost them money,” he said. “Security. PR. Lost deals because clients don’t like… uncertainty.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “The… old life.”
He took a bite of pie, chewed slowly, considering.
“I miss… parts,” he admitted. “I miss my brother. I miss my mom’s laugh when she’s had a glass and a half of wine. I miss… the feeling of solving something hard. Of making a call and having it be… right.”
“And the rest?” she pressed.
He swallowed.
“I don’t miss waking up at three a.m. with my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest because some fund in Singapore is wobbling,” he said. “I don’t miss checking my email before I pee. I don’t miss… counting my worth in percentages and headlines.”
She thought of her own small metrics—tips in a jar, the way regulars smiled when she remembered their orders, the quiet pride of going a month without overdrafting.
“Have you ever been… nothing?” she asked.
He blinked.
“What?” he said.
She floundered, trying to explain.
“Like… if who you are when you’re not doing the thing everyone expects… is just…” She made a vague gesture. “Blank.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “That’s… exactly what I’ve been feeling.”
She exhaled, relieved and unnerved.
“At least you have the money cushion to… float,” she said.
He snorted.
“Not as much as you think,” he said. “My father’s frozen the accounts he can. The rest is… what I pulled out before I left. Which sounds like a lot until you’re living out of a car and trying to figure out how long you’re willing to be… nowhere.”
“You could get a job,” she blurted.
He choked on his coffee, laughing.
“Doing what?” he asked when he caught his breath. “Have you seen my resume? It’s three pages of ‘I move fake money between fake companies and make it slightly less fake.’”
“You could… I don’t know, consult,” she said. “Teach. Write a book about how terrible your life was and sell it for millions.”
His eyes flickered.
“Thought about it,” he said quietly. “The writing. Before.”
“Why not now?” she pressed.
He hesitated.
“Because…” He searched for the words. “Because I’m not sure anyone wants to hear a man complain about his golden cage when they’re working three jobs and can’t pay their hospital bills.”
She flinched.
That hit… close.
“You’d be surprised what people want to hear if it makes them feel like their suffering is… seen,” she said. “Or at least entertains them enough to forget about it for a minute.”
He studied her.
“You saying my existential crisis is… content?” he asked.
“I’m saying maybe it could be… something,” she said. “Instead of just you, alone, in your head, looping the same arguments with your dad in absentia.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“You bring me pages, I’ll tell you if it’s pretentious,” she added.
His mouth curved.
“You’d do that?” he asked.
She smirked.
“I’ll do it for the free sneak peek,” she said. “I like being able to brag that I knew a bestselling author before he was famous.”
“You think I’d be a bestseller?” he asked.
“You already are,” she said. “You’re just filed under ‘missing.’”
He laughed, startled, the sound warmer this time.
For a second, the tightness around his eyes eased completely.
Rae’s chest did something stupid.
She turned away.
There. That was enough truth for one night.
***
The rest of the shift passed in slices.
Little stolen conversations when the orders slowed. Quick looks across the room when the bell over the door chimed and both of them checked, on instinct, for uniforms.
Once, a state trooper came in for a donut and coffee.
Rae felt Noah’s whole body go still.
She made a point of walking over to the cop *first*.
“What’s up, Sam?” she asked, forcing casual.
Sam, who’d been coming in since he was twenty-three and terrified of the first corpse he’d had to see, smiled tiredly.
“Same old,” he said. “You see that thing on the news? That missing rich kid?”
“Hard to miss,” Rae said lightly, willing her face not to freeze.
Sam grunted.
“Crazy,” he said. “We get fliers from every direction. State, feds, private investigators, you name it. Like we have time to chase after some guy who probably ran off to Europe because he couldn’t handle his trust fund.”
“Must be nice,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” Sam said. “You see anybody looks like his picture, you let me know. Half the troopers in the state are champing at the bit for that reward.”
He said it like a joke.
Rae’s stomach flipped anyway.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” she said.
He tipped his cup at her and moved down the counter.
She carried a pot to the truckers, heart still jackhammering.
When she looked over at the corner booth, Noah’s jaw was clenched, his knuckles white around his mug.
She mouthed, *It’s fine*.
He exhaled, shoulders dropping half an inch.
A tiny nod.
They were linked now, like it or not.
Two people bound by a secret and a choice that hovered over their heads like a storm that refused to break.
When eight a.m. finally crawled around, she felt strange. Wrung out and wired all at once.
He stood to leave as Jenna came in, chattering about a video she’d seen.
“Get some sleep,” he said, stopping by the counter.
“You too,” she said.
He hesitated.
Then, slowly, he reached out and laid his hand, briefly, on the stainless steel edge of the counter.
His fingers brushed hers for half a second.
Warm.
Calloused.
Intentional.
Her breath hitched.
“See you next Tuesday, Rae,” he said.
The way he said it—low, rough, like a promise—sent heat skittering down her spine.
“Yeah,” she said, because anything else would have been too much. “See you, Noah.”
He left.
The bell chimed, flat and tired.
She watched him walk to his car.
He didn’t turn to look back this time.
He didn’t have to.
They were already in it.
Whether either of them was ready or not.
***