“Really?” I smile at her. “This place has glamping cabins with beds that are on rollers, so you can choose to sleep indoors or on the balcony with mosquito netting.”
“That’s so cool. I can’t wait.” She pets Lucky, who’s nestled comfortably in her lap. “Thanks for getting me in to watch you film the commercial. You three all looked hot. But you were by far the hottest.”
I lift her hand and bring it to my mouth for a kiss. “I’m glad you were there.”
* * *
The campground is quiet and peaceful. And by the time we pull in, it’s also dark.
“Good thing we don’t have to set up the tent,” Hannah says. “I don’t want to risk losing Lucky at night.”
“The cabin will be safe,” I say as we pull into the gravel drive of our spot.
“It looks exactly how you described,” Hannah says as we walk up to the cabin and step inside.
A bed in the middle plus a chair, bathroom, and mini kitchen make up the cabin.
“With a/c,” I say. “That’s a nice surprise.”
“It’s like we’re playing house,” she says as she looks around the cabin.
Playing.
Not real.
Real is going to be when we say goodbye tomorrow.
I suck in a breath and go set up Lucky’s litter box.
Once the kitten is comfortably resting at the foot of the bed, Hannah and I go out to the patio to look at the stars.
“I never get to see stars like this in L.A.” Hannah laughs. “Unless I go to Hollywood.”
I chuckle. “Los Angeles has a different breed of stars for sure.”
I look over at her standing next to me. She’s resting her arms on the balcony while she gazes up at the night sky. My heart lurches. Because I don’t want to leave her tomorrow.
I pull her toward me in the moonlight.
“Dance with me.”
She melts into my arms as we dance with no music.
I hold her close. “I’ll miss this. I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.” She looks up at me hesitantly. “But we’ll be in the same city, right? So we could keep in touch.”
She’s throwing me the ball. And…whatever she sees on my face makes her step back.
“But that’s not a good idea,” she says hurriedly. “You need to focus on your career. We should end this when we get to Chicago. This was a fairytale, not real life, right?”
Right. But as we go inside and I watch her lift Lucky into her arms for a cuddle, this feels real to me.
It feels like the exact kind of real I always dreamed about.
But real life is my mother slipping away long before my dad and brothers and I stopped needing her.
A happy ending doesn’t exist in reality.
