I huff, a broken sound that might be a laugh.
“And if she tells you to get lost?” he goes on. “Then you take it like a man. You hurt. You learn. You move forward anyway. With a job. With a life that’s bigger than four walls and old ghosts. But at least you’ll know you didn’t let fear make the choice for you.”
Fear.
Coward.
Her words echo, sharp and unforgiving.
She wasn’t wrong.
I hear myself say, “You really think they’d hire me?”
“I really think they’d be idiots not to,” he says. “But they don’t know you yet. You have to let them. Same with her.”
I sit with it.
The idea of walking into some Saint Pierce office, shaking hands, talking through scenarios. The idea of seeing Ivy again—not by accident in a storm, but on purpose. Sober. Honest.
The idea terrifies me.
The idea of not doing it terrifies me more.
“Make the call,” I say.
Ruin doesn’t make me repeat it. “Atta boy,” he says. “I’ll talk to Dean. You’ll probably get a call in the next day or two. New Year’s is coming, but they’re always planning ahead.”
“Okay,” I say.
“And Rhett?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t half-ass this,” he says. “Not the work. Not the girl. If you’re going to go after her,go after her.Grand gestures, real apologies, the whole thing. You hid long enough. Time to show up.”
“I’ve got a plan,” I say, and for the first time since she walked away from my sleigh, the words feel…right. “Step one: get the job. Step two: get to Saint Pierce. Step three…”
“Win the girl,” Ruin says, smirking through the line.
“Win Ivy back,” I correct. “Or at least try like hell.”
He laughs. “There he is. My stubborn bastard of a brother. Keep me posted, yeah? Dakota’s dying for an excuse to come up and see snow that isn’t fake.”
“Yeah,” I say again, but this time there’s something in it that wasn’t there before. “I will.”
We hang up.
The cabin is quiet again.
But it’s a different kind of quiet now. Not the static, heavy silence of someone trying not to feel too much. This quiet hums. Anticipates.
I stand up.
Grab my old duffel from under the bed. It still smells faintly like dust and desert, but it’ll do. I start tossing things in—clothes, boots, the folder with my old service records. I pull out the quilt Mrs. Hadley gave me and fold it, fingers lingering on the worn patches.
I think about Saint Pierce. About security work. About walking into Ivy’s orbit with more than apologies—coming with a plan, a direction, a willingness to try.
I still don’t know if I’m built for all of it.
