Page 27 of Rescue in Misty Mountain

I could say the same thing about her.

I don’t bother trying to stop the way something tightens in my chest. The way it always does around her.

“You want to name him?” I ask.

Her eyes grow wide. “For real?”

I shrug. “You helped, you get to name him. That’s the rule.”

She squints at the owl. “He looks like a judgmental professor.”

“That’s not a name.”

“Archie.”

I stare at her. “Archie?”

“He’s an Archie. Short for Professor Archibald, of course.”

The owl blinks. I think he agrees.

“Alright,” I say, grinning. “Archie it is.”

We carry him back to the rehab shed together. She asks questions the whole way—what I feed him, how long he’ll stay, how often this happens. She wants to know everything. Not out of politeness. Out of curiosity. Investment.

“You ever get attached?” she asks.

I hesitate. “I’m not supposed to.”

“But?”

“Doesn’t always work that way.”

She nods, quiet. “I get that.”

And I think she does. More than I want her or anyone else to understand me.

She adjusts Archie’s perch once we get him settled. The owl ruffles, then stills, content in a way I’ve only seen with animals who feel safe.

“I think he likes you,” I say.

She throws my earlier words back at me. “That makes two of you.”

My breath catches.

I don’t move.

Neither does she.

It would be so easy to kiss her again right now.

To reach out and tug her closer. To give in to the way she looks at me, like she already knows how this ends and isn’t afraid of it.

But I don’t.

Because I’m starting to want things. And wanting things leads to risk.

We’re walking back to the cabin when her phone buzzes. She pulls it from her jacket pocket, brows lifting.

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