I watched as he moved the branches to the side, out of the way of the barely-there path. "If you thought you could distract me by climbing a tree, you've forgotten that my job used to be puppet master of distractions. I don't get distracted. I do the distracting. It's obnoxious and one of the reasons people cringe when they see me but I get the job done regardless of how awful I am in the process."
"All the more reason for you to find a different line of work, Peach."
"What do you want me to do, Linden?" I cried, my frustration suddenly boiling over. "Should I wait tables? Answer phones? Maybe I should sell pharmaceuticals. I already know all there is about bullshitting so now I can reallyhelppeople. How about that?"
"Why not? There's nothing wrong with any of those options."
"There's not, but—"
"But you don't know what your life is without your job.I get it.I know. I'm just saying, maybe you should take a minute to look around and realizethisis your life without that awful, obnoxious, codependent job, and it's not too bad."
"No, it's not bad except I'm gaming out how long I can paint inside walls with outside paint and go for walks in the woods before I have to sell Midge's house. Aside from that and the everyday anxiety of it, everything is great."
He shook his head like he was at his wits' end with me. For a minute, he stared off into the woods. Eventually, he said, "Then sell the house. You can stay with me as long as you want."
"You don't actually want that. You're offering because you don't like me using tools and doing things by myself."
"Would you stop it? Just for a second, Jasper, stop pretending I'm the one holding you back from anything. Stop acting as though you're unbearable to be around, that you're intolerable and impossible. You're not. Stop saying that shit, would you? It offends me because I don't like anyone talking about you that way." He shook his head again,nowpast his wits' end. "I'm offering you a place to live while you're figuring this out."
"And why would you do that?"
"Because I…I don't hate you. That's why."
My belly swooped. It would've been better if he'd said he loved me. It wouldn't have hit me nearly as hard because not hating me meant a great many things, none of which I could handle. None of which belonged in a conversation where I continually reminded him he was single.
But then I went ahead and made it so much worse by saying, "I don't hate you either."
Linden stared at me, blinking hard. His hand tightened around the belt he'd used to lever himself up the tree. His other hand opened, closed in a fist, and then opened and closed again. "Now that we've cleared that up, maybe you could put some real energy into deciding what you want to do next. Not just work but what comes next in your life. And, I don't know, you might want to explore things that don't make you sound like you'd rather be stabbed by a hundred rusty steak knives."
"When did I sound like that?"
"When you were talking about the commentating gig. And again with the pharmaceutical sales."
I stared at the leaves on the ground around me. "I'd rather not do either of those things, even if I can."
Linden swung an arm over my shoulders and steered me down another nonexistent path. "Then don't, Jas. Sell the house if you have to, stay with me as long as you need, but don't keep doing things you hate."
I nodded, agreeing although I couldn't really agree tomoving in with him. Even if I was sorta-kinda-maybe already there.
We were quiet as we walked, the weight of not hating each other lifting and falling down around us. Saying those words snapped the cord of tension we'd been twisting and winding for weeks—but it also broke all the vows ofonly temporary,just for now,just a fling.
Not hating a fling was serious business, or so I assumed, seeing as I didn't have many flings to my name and none in recent memory. But I knew I wasn't supposed to have not-hating feelings. Not when this place was only a detour for me.
Thiswasa detour, right? This wasn't my destination.
I stopped, looked up at the bare branches, blinked hard at the sun. This wasn't where I was meant to be. It just wasn't.
"Okay there?" Linden asked.
"Yeah. Fine. Just thought I saw an owl."
"Not in the middle of the afternoon but maybe a hawk. A lot of those guys around here."
"Wait." I pressed a hand to his chest. "You never finished telling me why you're single, or why you've been single, and how that has anything to do with being a triplet."
He covered my hand with his. "I thought we'd moved on to more important topics."
"Like I said earlier, I spend enough time fixated on my problems. Let's talk about yours instead."
