Page 164 of Rhodes

“So it really was okay? I mean, are you two going to be able to get past all of this and let our families hang again?”

“Yeah.” I lean back against the couch. “More than okay, I guess. It felt normal for a little while.”

“Only for a little while?”

I think about him following me through the marsh without trying to run the day, asking what I wanted to do when the carrier changed the plan, and then letting me make the calls.

“I mean, it was normal the whole time. I just got in my head.”

She studies me.

“That sounds healthy.”

I leave out the kiss, and I do it on purpose, because the second I put it in the air, she is going to want to know what it means. I’m not handing anybody a piece of this before I have decided what it is myself.

I know why I did it. He stood in that shed with the cold coming off the water and handed me a decision he could have made without me, the third one he had handed me that day, and I kissed him for it.

Nobody talked me into it, and nobody was watching. I was not being carried along by one single thing outside my own body, which is the entire reason it counts. It was the least accidental thing I’ve done in a year.

My phone starts vibrating on the coffee table. I reach for it, expecting Dad or maybe Jo.

But it's Rhodes calling. My stomach pulls tight. Libba sees the screen before I can turn it over.

“Oh.”

I look at her.

“He probably has an update on Monday.”

“At nine-thirty at night?”

“Logistics never sleeps. He told me that.”

The phone keeps vibrating. I finally answer.

“Hey.”

His voice is different immediately. “Hey. Are you somewhere you can talk?”

I sit straighter. Libba doesn't take her eyes off me.

“Yeah. What's up?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can muster.

There is a beat on the other end.

“Cooper knows.”

Everything inside me goes still. I look at Libba, and she mouths, "What?"

I hold up one finger and stand.

“Hold on,” I say to Rhodes.

I cross the room, open the front door, and step onto the porch before closing it behind me. Cold air slides under the sweatshirt I put on after my shower. I walk to the end of the porch and lean against the railing.

“What do you mean he knows? Knows what?”

“He came out to Oak Moss this afternoon.”