And while Stephanie might be right, my computer always chooses me back. It won’t leave. It won’t think I’m too much. It won’t tell me that it’s changed its mind when I’ve been typing on it for too long.
“I’ll finish this up and then head out. See you next year,” I say to Stephanie.
She concedes, knowing that I’ll always argue my way to the very end of a conversation until I win. “Okay, Kate.”
Stephanie walks out of my office as my phone buzzes.
It’s a photo from my brother.
I open the file, and my eyes instantly pool with tears.
It’s a framed photo of me with my dad. I’m around thirteen, wearing a sweater that my dad had made for me. He took a knitting class for an entire year, secretly, so he could make it for me. It had an armadillo on it. I’d never received something so special. In the photo my dad has his arm around me, leaning down on my head as my frizzy hair tickled at his face.
With the photo, my brother typed out,I found this photo and had it framed for your Christmas gift this year. I know we’re celebrating tomorrow night, but Kate—just because Dad is gone doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone else that won’t love you as much as he did. Your armadillo shell has protected you from so much, but I’m worried that you’ve also allowed it to keep you from just as much. Not everyone is a predator, except maybe Goose, at least from your version of her. I love you.
I laugh through my tears at the mention of Goose. She’s most definitely a predator.
I look at my dad’s face, a sense of awe and wonder radiating from his smile.
“I wish you could tell me what to do, Dad,” I whisper. “I just want to make you proud.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
Ididn’t sleep that night.
As my veins slowly lost their steady supply of espresso, my mind had no choice but to think about Boone irrationally. I’d pulled up our silly selfie on my phone, staring at him like I was staring at a shooting star.
And I am completely aware how ridiculous that sounds.
I miss him.
I hate it.
But I do.
I miss his smile, the way it slowly tiptoes across his cheeks until he’s smiling as if he has a special smile that’s just for me.
I miss the feeling of his hand wrapped around mine.
I miss the way he isn’t afraid to be honest back—to surrender his thoughts to my own.
And I miss his gingerbread latte.
“I need coffee,” I say to myself, looking at the clock on my phone. I still have two hours until I need to be at the airport to fly to Tulsato spend New Year’s with my brother, Maisy Jo, and the kids.
I snatch up my purse from the small glass table in my foyer before pulling my coat around me and rushing toward the door. In boots, not stilettos. I am not going to get on a plane in shoes that aren’t sensible ever again. But I pause before I can turn the doorknob.
I don’t want to trek down to another disappointing coffee shop where their beans aren’t as bold, and their creamers aren’t as homemade, and their baristas aren’t Boone.
Boone ruined coffee for me.
And if I don’t have coffee, what do I really have?
I know that’s teeter-tottering on the edge of insanity, but also, I’d done crazy things for the love of coffee. I’d almost died, after all. But almost dying had brought me to Boone.
And if I am really pinch-my-cheeks-hard honest with myself, Boone was right.
For thirty-seven years, it’s been me against the world. I’ve always told myself that I’m not afraid of a challenge, but really, when I dig deep within, I’m just not afraid of the things that don’t matter the most. I’m terrified of the things that do.
