After a long second, the notification that Audrey was recording a voice note popped up and Hallie’s heart soared at the fact that she was about to hear Audrey’s voice.
“I mean, you’re always welcome here,” she said, genuine and heartbreakingly hopeful. “And it’s not like I wouldn’t love to kidnap you to California for the rest of time.”
“Yeah?” Hallie asked, equally wistful, as she recorded her own voice note. Could she pull that off? Her job, her family, rent prices in California… But, Audrey. She felt worth the trade even if it was still so early and the cost of living was a genuine concern. “I’d probably need to buy my own inn to make that work, right?”
Call me?Audrey texted back immediately, and Hallie’s limbs felt like they were turning into Jell-O—just the kind that fizzed with electric sparks. What was giving up the only life she’d ever known if it meant running to the woman who made her feel that way?
She hit dial and the call barely rang before Audrey’s voice was loud and clear in her ear.
“Would you even like living in California?” she asked, her voice nervous, like she, too, had spent every day this week wanting to figure out how they made this thing work.
Hallie sighed. “Well, I loved it when I visited as a kid, and I always wanted to move there. Plus, it has you, and I feel like I’d love any place that had you.”
“Even if I moved to the moon?”
“You, me, and the moon? I think we’d make it work.”
“Yeah,” Audrey sighed, like she’d love for it to just be the two of them making it work.
River’s words felt like they were pelting Hallie in the head. Audrey wouldn’t ask,couldn’task. She’d want it with every fiber of her being and she still wouldn’t want to feel like she was pressuring Hallie.
She sucked in a steadying breath, watching the snow fall outside the window and knowing how different the weather would be outside Audrey’s office. Nothing made her feel quite as far away as that did. “I always wanted to buy a little inn, to own it and make it beautiful. I’d buy fifteen Christmas trees every year and decorate every bit of the place for all the holidays.”
“I’m sure it would be beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
“Property is cheaper in Michigan…”
“Right.”
“They hire full-time forensic entomologists there,” she said, sounding like she wasn’t quite breathing. “There aren’t any openings at the moment, though.”
“You looked,” Hallie said, also not breathing. Her mind was stalling.
“Of course.”
“Of course?What do you mean? Audrey, coming back to Michigan isn’t an option for you—your family, how hard it is to be here, the career you’ve worked so hard on…”
“It’s easier being there with you.”
Everything was spinning. This sounded like Audrey asking, leaping,trying. But her way of doing that was to throw herself into the flames, and Hallie couldn’t let her do that.
She pressed her hand to the cold window, regulating, just like Audrey did, with temperatures. “I can’t believe you looked, but you can’t come back here.”
“And I can’t keep being this far away from you, wondering if we’re ever going to be in the same place again.”
“We will. I promise.” Her stomach ached, her chest clenched, and her mind demanded to know when. She didn’t have an answer, but this wasn’t the two of them giving up. This was Audrey asking. And they’d both already been trying all week.
“Hallie, I—” Audrey broke off as there was a knock from her side of the call. She sighed. “Yes?”
A muffled man’s voice barely filtered through the call, and Hallie sighed too. It was probably time for both of them to get back to work.
One day, there wouldn’t be all of these challenges, these barriers between them. Hallie was going to make sure of it, starting with a conversation with her mom and a job search. Audrey had done it for her, the very least she could do was look.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Audrey found Zora already in her apartment when she made it home. It had been a different first week back from Michigan than they usually encountered, but Audrey had still needed her support—navigating both her family and the weird state of limbo she and Hallie were existing in.
