Page 57 of Pucked Up

We stayed like that, suspended in amber light, while the fire burned lower. The simple act of breathing together became a conversation more honest than any we could have with words. Inhale. Exhale. The rise and fall of his chest beneath my arms told me everything his voice couldn't.

Micah's head tipped back, coming to rest against my shoulder. His weight was substantial and real—a deliberate surrender of control I didn't take lightly. His eyes remained closed, dark lashes casting shadows against his cheeks in the firelight.

He didn't say thank you. He didn't need to. Letting me hold him was more than that—it was trust distilled to its purest form, offered without reservation for perhaps the first time since I'd arrived.

Tomorrow would come with its own challenges. The hearing loomed, ready to drag us back into a world that demanded explanations, apologies, and performances of remorse. The bubble we'd constructed in the woods would rupture, exposing us to the kind of scrutiny neither of us was prepared for.

Still, tonight, we'd found something neither of us had been looking for. It wasn't resolution yet—the ragged edges of our wounds were still too raw for that. It was the shape of something new forming from the broken pieces we'd brought to each other.

I pressed my lips to the nape of his neck, not quite a kiss—more an acknowledgment.

His fingers tightened around mine, and I felt rather than heard his response:I know.

The fire crackled low, nearly spent. Neither of us moved to feed it.

We had found enough warmth in each other to last until morning.

Chapter seventeen

Micah

The cabin door fought me on the way out, half-frozen at the hinges. It stuck like it didn't want to let us go.

I shoved it with my shoulder hard enough to make the wood complain. Outside, the air had teeth—sharp, wet cold that didn't merely bite but sank in and held on. It slipped under my collar and settled in my bones. The wind cut sideways off the ridge, dragging the scents of pine and distant chimney smoke.

Noah stood a few steps behind me, looking out like it was the first time he'd remembered the rest of the world continued without us.

"Truck still runs?"

"Barely, but she's got at least one more trip in her."

Noah smirked slightly. "Kind of like you." He grinned and walked past me, boots crunching through the icy crust.

He tossed a canvas bag into the truck bed—empty gallon jugs, odds and ends, and our reasons for going to town. It wasn't a long list, but it was enough. We needed gas for the generator, coffee, and more loaves of bread.

I climbed into the truck and turned the key. The engine spat once, hesitated, then caught with a wet, grinding growl.

We rolled out slowly. Gravel snapped under the tires. Soon, the trees parted, and we reached the asphalt-paved road to town.

We didn't talk for a while. I listened to the rattle of the heater trying and failing to do its job and the low hum of Noah's voice as he flipped through radio stations. He found nothing but a distant, static-y country music station, but he left it on anyway—some woman crooned about rivers and redemption.

He finally directed words toward me. "Feels weird."

"What does?"

"Movement. People. The idea that someone might make us a sandwich that doesn't involve three-year-old mustard."

I snorted. "Are you complaining about my cooking?"

"Micah, you made spaghetti that crunched. That's a cry for help."

He leaned his head against the window, watching the snowbanks blur past. "You think they'll recognize you?"

"Probably."

"And me?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what to say. His face had been in the news, too. He was the kid Keller took out, a rookie with a busted collarbone and a career that might be cut short.

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