Juniper nods, her gaze watery.
Ethan answers aloud for them both: “Oh god yes.”
And off I go to fetch the morning coffee for my husband and our fun new friend.
We have our coffees out on the deck, overlooking the snow-covered firs, their branches dripping as the sun warms them through to their bright green needles.
Our car is free now. The storm is well and truly over, the snow just a pretty blanket we could easily cross if we wanted to …
Isn’t it better that we’re not snowed in?
I steal a glance at Juniper, the sunlight glistening on her pale skin. If she stays now, we’ll know for sure she likes us back. But would I really care that much if she didn’t? I look away, hurt by my own line of thinking. Of course I’d care. We’d all care. We’re in this together.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Ethan remarks, and I can’t help smiling as I look at him all dressed up in his sexy lumberjack gear, as if he were but a handsome woodman passing by and not an English college professor on a winter holiday.
“It really is,” I say.
“I never could get sick of this view,” Juniper says wistfully.
“Did you grow up around here?” I ask.
“Yeah. Just down the road actually.”
“No way.” I’m instantly jealous. “How come you moved away?”
Juniper looks out over the woods, her expression pensive and far away. “I was eighteen when my dad got this job in Chicago.” She shrugs. “My sister had already moved out—thank god—but I wasn’t exactly in a rush to go with them.”
“I get that,” Ethan says. He moved into halls his first year of university, then after getting his degree and his PhD and everything, I guess he was already so settled living away from home that he never went back.
I swallow. It was never like that for me. I lived with my parents until I met Ethan. Heck, I was still living at home when I was what … twenty-four? Twenty-five? I had never even thought about moving out and living on my own or with friends. I just figured I’d leave when the time was right. Then Ethan came along and that was that.
Maybe that’s why me and Mum were so close—because I stayed. Or maybe I stayed because we were so close.
“So, erm … did you go with them?” I ask tentatively.
Juniper grins, mischief colouring her expression. “Nope!”
Ethan looks at her. He’s hanging on her every word.
“That’s when I bought my campervan,” she says proudly, but her face falls as she looks out at the beautiful sunshine. “You know, I could probably get to it now … if you want me to?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head. I don’t want her to go. Things have been going so great between us. It’s been sort of magical, actually. And yeah, maybe I got a bit jealous when she was with Ethan, but that’s gotta be pretty normal, right?
I stand, intending to walk right over to her, to hold her and reassure her that she’s wanted here, with us. But then again…
What if she feels trapped? What if she doesn’t really like us at all, and now we’ve made things super weird? What if she really does want to go back to her campervan and she just doesn’t wanna hurt our feelings?
Instead of going over to her, I take myself over to the railings where, to my absolute joy, she quickly joins me, followed swiftly by Ethan.
We stand there, gazing out, the three of us, alone together on the edge of the whole world.
Then, finally: “I want to stay,” Juniper says, so softly her words are nearly whisked away by the mellow whisper of wind.
But we’re standing side by side, close enough to hear her every word, perhaps her every thought. And I believe her now. I believe she truly wants to be here with us.
Then she turns to me, tears in her eyes. “Can I stay?”
“Fuck yes!” I open my arms to her, and she walks right into my embrace, with Ethan folding himself around us from the other side.
