I frowned. “That doesn’t?—”
“Come to Northbend,” she repeated. “Be close. Build something on your own terms. If something comes up, you decide what to do with it.”
Northbend wasn’t an abstract place in my life. It hadn’t been for a while. I knew the way the lake looked just before it froze over, that deep, glassy stillness right before winter settled in for real. I knew the back hallway in Lo’s house where the floors creaked no matter how carefully you stepped, the one she always swore she was going to fix and never did. I knew the kitchen—wide and warm and always somehow full—where holidays stretched longer than they were supposed to because no one ever wanted to be the first to leave.
I knew where Ezra kept the good coffee. I knew how early he woke up, how the house always felt quietly awake beforethe sun came up because he’d already been moving through it, steady and unhurried. I knew the lake path he insisted on clearing himself after the first snowfall, like it mattered that the space stayed usable, that nothing sat untouched for too long.
And Lucy—Ezra’s daughter.
I hadn’t spent enough time with her yet to call it effortless, but there was something there—something easy, something that felt like it was just waiting for more time to settle into place. Late-night conversations in the kitchen during my last visit. Shared looks over Lo’s chaos. The kind of almost-friendship that didn’t need much to tip into something solid.
It wasn’t a question of whether I fit there.
It was whether I would let myself.
The idea settled differently than everything else had. It wasn’t a solution. It wasn’t a guarantee. It wasn’t someone stepping in and fixing things for me.
“You’re not locking yourself into anything,” Lo continued. “You’re giving yourself a place to land while you figure out your next move.”
A place to land. The words echoed.
I swallowed against the sudden burn in my throat. Across the table, Micah covered my hand with hers fully this time. Warm. Solid. Uncomplicated. Her thumb pressed once against my knuckles.
“I don’t want to rely on you,” I admitted.
“You’re not relying on me,” she countered. “You’re choosing proximity to people who care about you.”
“What about Ezra?” I asked quietly.
Because his presence wasn’t small. It wasn’t something that could be ignored or brushed aside. He existed in a world of power and influence whether I wanted to engage with it or not.
Lo’s smile turned knowing.
Before she could answer, the shape in the background moved again. Then Ezra stepped partly into frame, one broad hand braced on the back of Lo’s chair, his expression warm in that quiet way that always made him seem steadier than the room around him. He looked like himself even through a phone—grounded, unhurried, composed in a way that never felt performative.
Lo glanced up at him, smiling before turning the camera slightly.
Ezra’s voice came low and even, the kind that never had to fight for attention to command it. “You should come to Northbend, Bea.”
He didn’t say more. Didn’t sell it. Didn’t overstep. He let the words land as they were, then squeezed Lo’s shoulder once and stepped back out of frame with the same quiet certainty he seemed to bring to everything.
Lo’s smile softened, like she knew exactly what his brief appearance had done. “Ezra would never make you feel like you owe him anything,” she replied. “And he would never give you something you didn’t earn.”
I looked down at the table. At Micah’s hand over mine—steady, grounding. At my laptop, the half-finished paper waiting with a patience I didn’t feel. At the phone in my other hand, Lo’s face framed by that warm, familiar kitchen I had stood in more times than I could count.
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
“That’s okay,” she replied easily. “You don’t have to know today.”
Silence stretched again.
But this time, it wasn’t heavy. It opened. Like something shifting just enough to let light through. Like a path I hadn’tlet myself consider fully finally settling into focus—not new, not foreign, just… there. Waiting.
Micah nudged my foot again. This time, gentler.
I looked at her.
She smiled. Small. Certain.