Credence

“Still in,” Noah replies, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me.

“Right.”

In? I start to wonder what that means but shake it off, wiping my wet hand on my jeans, still feeling his eyes on me. Why is he staring?

I meet his eyes again, and he quirks a real smile. Should I say something? Or should he say something? I guess this is weird. We’re essentially cousins. Am I supposed to hug him or something? Is it rude not to?

Whatever.

“How long did you look for the horse before you gave up?” Jake asks him, a sigh that he won’t let out thickening his voice.

Noah smiles brightly and shrugs. “My logic is that if we don’t find her then she won’t ever run away again.”

Jake cocks an eyebrow as he glances down at me and explains, “We have a young mare who always seems to find some way out of her stall.” And then he eyes his son again as if this is a tired subject. “But horses are expensive, so she needs to be found.”

The kid holds up his beer and backs away. “Just came back for fuel.” And then he locks eyes with me as he walks toward the back of the house. “If you shower, save me some hot water,” he tells me.

I watch him walk past the large stone fireplace, down a long hallway, and eventually I hear a screen door slam shut somewhere at the back of the house. He’s going to find a horse tonight?

“It’s dark so I’ll show you around the property in the morning,” Jake says, walking off to the right, “but here’s the kitchen.”

He trails around the island in the large space, but I stay back.

“Of course, help yourself to anything,” he explains, meeting my eyes. “We’ll be making plenty of runs to town before the weather starts in the next couple of months, so we can stock the pantry with any food you like. We’ll be doing some canning, too.” He closes the fridge door I’m guessing his son left open and informs me, “We try to grow, catch, and kill as much of our own food as possible.”

It makes sense why I thought I saw a barn and a greenhouse among the other structures. With getting snowed in for such long periods of time, it’s smart to rely on grocery stores and the town as little as possible.

He gestures for me to follow him, and I join him as he opens a door off the side of the kitchen.

“If you need the washer and dryer, it’s out here in the shop,” he tells me, flipping on a light. He descends the few stairs, and I see another truck parked in the bright garage, this one red.

Jake picks up a wicker laundry basket off the cement floor and tosses it back onto the top of the dryer, but as I take a step, something catches my eye, and I stop at the top of the stairs. A buck hangs by its hind legs off to the right, a small pool of blood gathered around the drain the dead deer hangs over. His antlers hover a foot off the floor, swaying just slightly.

What the fu…? I hang my mouth open, gaping at it.

All of a sudden, Jake is standing next to me on the stairs. “Like I said… grow, catch, and kill.” He sounds amused by whatever he sees on my face. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

He’s gone before I have a chance to answer, and I back away from the garage, step into the house again, and close the door. I’m not a vegetarian, but it occurs to me I’ve never met my meat before it was meat.

I swallow a couple times to wet my dry mouth.

“Living room, bathroom, TV,” he points out as I follow him. “We don’t have cable, but we have lots of movies, and you can stream as long as the Internet holds out.”

I follow him around the great room, seeing rustic-looking leather sofas, a coffee table, and chairs. The fireplace is big enough to sit in, and the chimney stretches up through the rafters. Wood and leather everywhere. It smells like Home Depot in here with a tinge of burnt bacon.

“Do you want the WiFi?” Jake asks me.

The reminder that I can stay connected here makes me pause for a moment.

But if I refuse it, he’ll wonder why. “Sure,” I answer.

“It’s under Cobra Kai.”

I shoot a look up at him. Cute.

Searching the available networks, I find Cobra Kai is the only one that pops up.

“Password?”