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Gideon.

Rory’s heart gave a very unnecessary thump.

“Yeah,” said Rory, setting her notebook down.

“Good. You might bring him some more food. I know that you put coffee and milk and the like up there for the morning, but he’s probably going to need lunch.”

The reaction she felt to actually going there when he might be home was something like...panic. And she couldn’t explain why.

“Do we provide room and board now?” she asked, her heart pounding in her ears.

“No. But he is... He’s Gideon Payne. He has a Purple Heart. He took Mapleton High School to state in football. Nobody else has ever done that.”

“You didn’t even go there,” Rory pointed out.

“No. Maybe I didn’t. But you have to admit, it’s impressive. This is a tiny little area, and it’s never really been on the map for much. But when it has been...it’s been him. Well, and Sawyer Garrett putting a mail-order bride article out there on the internet, and getting picked up by worldwide news outlets. There was that. But otherwise, it’s Gideon. He’s a war hero and he’s...”

“I get it. Are you sure you don’t want to go deliver the stuff? You seem like you have a little bit of a crush on him.” If that sounded pointed, it wasn’t on purpose.

If it was deflection, she didn’t mean it to be.

She was just about to see the man she’d had a totally teen-years-defining crush on for the first time in forever and it was just fine.

She wished, she really did, that the timing of this were different. That she’d run into him again after she’d become interesting.

Or at least even half of what he’d told her she could be that day he’d rescued her at school.

Lord knew she wasn’t now.

Not that she harbored secret fantasies about anything happening, it was just that...of course she wanted to be a little more amazing when coming face-to-face with the man who had defined masculine beauty to her when she’d been fifteen. Who wouldn’t?

“I don’t,” said Fia. “I’m merely giving admiration where admiration is due. Because I am good like that.”

“Let me tell you, Gideon Payne is just a regular guy. I think it’s great that his reputation precedes him, and as a war hero, he deserves some credit. But... Don’t forget that I am still very good friends with his sister. And I used to see him around the house quite a bit. He is aregular guy.”

Her heart fluttered as she said it, like it was calling her a liar. She wasn’t lying. He was a man. An amazing one, sure. But he wasn’t...the demigod her mind had built him into all those years ago, so she and everyone else could calm down.

“Okay. If you say so,” Fia said.

Rory remembered him all clean-cut, and the last time she’d seen him had been right before he went into the military, so not only had he been clean-cut with that square razor-sharp jaw, but he’d had the high and tight haircut that made his looks even more severe.

He was basically Captain America.

And good for him.Good for him.

She went to the store, putting together a little care package to bring up this afternoon since Fia was bound and determined to overextend the hospitality.

She thought about what kind of thing she might do in a much larger apartment complex, where there were a hundred and twenty units.

It was massive.

But she would also have more resources. She’d already done many video calls with the other manager, learning that there were other resources available to her should there ever be emergencies. She wouldn’t be on the hook personally for repairs. Her job was simply to facilitate all these things and make the tenants feel like life in the apartment complex ran smoothly.

They were premium apartments. And Rory would be getting one as part of her job.

She tried to imagine that life. A life nestled in this beautiful city she’d never been to.

Bricks and noise and streetlights, all things that they didn’t have in Pyrite Falls.