Page 23 of Naughty With The Mountain Man
“You good?” he asks me.
I nod. “Yeah. This place feels like home.”
That answer doesn’t seem to ease him.
“Come on,” I say, taking his hand and tugging him toward the entrance. “You need to meet some of the people I care about. Might change your mind about the wholepeople are the worstthing.”
He raises a brow but doesn’t argue.
Inside, it’s warm and loud and chaotic. A teenager in a hoodie skates past on socks and almost crashes into a chair. Someone else is blasting holiday music from a Bluetooth speaker. The front desk is manned by Amber, my co-worker, who spots me and freezes mid-bite of a bagel.
“Ellie?!” she gasps, standing up so fast her chair rolls back.
I brace for it—and yep, here it comes. Full-body hug. She squeezes me like I’ve just returned from a mission trip in the Amazon and not a cozy cabin an hour away.
“We’ve beenworried sick!You didn’t even answer my last text!”
“I know,” I say, gently pulling back. “I’m okay now. But… there’s been some stuff.”
Her eyes flick to Micah, who stands just behind me, clearly trying to blend into the shadows. It doesn’t work. He’s too tall, too broad, and way toodangerous-lookingto be anything other than instantly suspicious.
“Amber, this is Micah.” I pause. “He’s… helping me stay safe.”
Amber’s brows fly up. “Oh.Oh.” She smiles wide, but not in a mocking way—more likethank God someone’s protecting my girl.
Micah nods once, gruff. “Ma’am.”
Amber snorts. “No one calls me ma’am, honey. This isn’t the DMV.”
I stifle a laugh. Micah almost cracks a smile.
We move through the center, and I introduce him to a few more staff members—Troy, who runs the after-school programs and insists Micah “could bench-press a minivan,” and Sasha, ourtherapist who gives Micah one of those long, clinical once-overs that makes evenmesweat.
Then we head into the common room, where a handful of teens are sprawled across beanbags and couches, playing video games, drawing, or pretending not to notice us.
A girl with pink braids looks up. “Miss Ellie!” she says, then drops her sketchbook to race over and wrap me in a hug that knocks the air out of me.
“Hey, Jules,” I whisper into her hair. “Missed you.”
Micah watches it all like a man in a foreign land. He’s quiet, scanning, cataloguing. But I can see it—the way his posture softens. The way his eyes track the way the kids light up. The way he studies the sketchbook left on the couch like he’s seeing something real again. Somethingpure.
This place isn’t just chaos.
It’shope.
And as Jules tugs me toward a corner of the room to show me her latest drawing, I glance back at Micah.
He’s standing there in the middle of it all, solid and still, like a mountain nobody’s quite noticed yet.
And for the first time,
I see it—the cracks in his walls.
Letting in the light.
10
Micah
