Page 90 of Tessa and Nash

“Why did your uncle keep you away from this?” I ask. The question has been chewing at me since the porch.

Tessa doesn’t look up. “Because he thinks I’m easily influenced.”

“That’s laughable.”

“It’s not,” she says quietly, and the tone makes me pause. “He’s been telling me since I was twelve that I’m… soft.”

My chest tightens. “Soft?”

“Because I care,” she adds.

I stare at her, the way she holds the papers, holding herself together too.

“Caring isn’t soft.”

Tessa’s eyes flick up to mine, and I think she’s going to snap at me.

Instead, she looks away again, jaw clenched. “Tell my uncle that.”

“I will,” I say, without thinking.

She snorts. “You’d last ten seconds.”

“I’d last twelve,” I argue.

That gets her. A tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile. But close.

And the fact that I can make that happen, here, in this place that makes her tense, hits me hard.

Because I like it.

I like her.

And that’s a problem I don’t know how to solve.

We take a break in the kitchen because even Tessa Long can’t outdo the human body forever. We sit at the small table, a distance apart that might as well be a lie.

I pull two water bottles from my truck bag and hand her one.

She takes it without looking at me. “Thanks.”

I lean back in the chair, listening to the quiet, the wind outside, the house settling.

“So,” I say, because silence is dangerous. “How come you never told me you alphabetize everything?”

Tessa’s head snaps up. “How do you know that?”

I grin. “Maeve told Faith, Faith told Rose, Rose told my mom, my mom told Boone, Boone told me. Buckhorn’s basically a group chat with extra steps.”

Tessa looks mildly horrified. “Maeve told Faith?”

“Yep.”

“That traitor.”

“She said it affectionately,” I offer.

Tessa narrows her eyes. “Did she also tell them I collect old maps?”