“Did you like living with Griffin? How's he doing these days?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out for yourself soon enough, as he’ll be home in about a week. But, yeah, we had a good time. Hiked a lot. Learned a lot from each other. Fought occasionally. Forgave often. Brought Evan along for the ride when he wasn’t busy here being the golden boy,” he smirked.
“I think Blaire has a thing for Evan… maybe,” Georgia admitted, although she wasn’t sure why she did. “She thinks all you Lovett boys are… ahem…” she stopped herself, afraid she’d give too much of her own thoughts—and not just those of her best friend—away, “attractive.”
Lake smirked. “That so? And who would she,” he air quoted, “say is themostattractive Lovett boy?”
“That’s two questions. You’re at five or six now, right? Like I said, Blaire would say Evan. Easy-peasy.”
Lake’s eyebrows rose at her deflection, and Georgia knew she’d asked far more questions than he had. She was too intrigued, too starved for any information on the years that had passed since high school. She wanted to know everything. So they talked about it all: adventures with siblings, hopes for the future, failures, goals and dreams. But never dipped into the dangerous territory that had kept them apart for the years in between.
“Why are you here, Lake?” Georgia finally asked in the early hours of the morning, when darkness still covered the church and the darkened hallways. They’d long since abandoned their separate sides of the couch. Georgia lay across the entirety of the couch while Lake sat on the floor, his legs splayed out and his shoulders and back resting near her head.
“That question again, huh? What’s your tally now?” he teased, and then ran a hand through his hair. “I just thought it might be nice to volunteer with the youth. This youth group was a big part of my teen years, ya know? I wish a guy my age now would have been around while I was a part of it.”
Georgia waited for a moment, taking in his heartfelt response. “That’s really sweet, actually. But, I mean,” she turned on her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin, looking at him more fully, “why are you here… back in Sugartree? Why’d you come home?”
Lake leaned his head back, letting it rest near hers and looked at the ceiling, searching for an answer. “Ahh. That. My dad… My family needed me. He isn’t… He’s getting older, ya know, and I just thought I should come home to be with them. To be helpful for once.”
He’d come home for the same reasons she had. To serve his family and to be here for them. Her heart nearly burst for the man who really had changed since she’d known him. Georgia put her hand out tentatively for Lake, and he took it. Like they did this all the time. Like it was the simplest, most ordinary action he’d ever taken.
“My dad had a heart attack three years ago. I was living in Atlanta, rarely coming home to see them, and this terrible thing happened to one of the people I love most, and I wasn’t here. I had been so busy with my own life, and I almost lost him.” Georgia felt a pit in her stomach at the memory of that phone call. Her mother’s shaky voice telling her what had happened. To meet her at the hospital. That she’d know more soon. She’d never forget how scared she’d been and how guilty she’d felt for not being there when her parents needed her most.
Lake squeezed her hand. “Georgia, you know you couldn’t have done anything.”
“No, I know. But I could afterward. So, I sold my place in the city, quit my job at the marketing firm, and moved back here. I took over the shop so my mom could be with Dad full time while he recovered, and I helped wherever I could. Caroline was already in Savannah, and Dakota was about to graduate. It felt like I was the only option… and then I never left.”
“Do you want to?”
She contemplated it, never having really asked herself that question. “Sometimes. I miss marketing, but I wish I didn’t feel like everything would all fall apart if I left. I wish I wasn’t so…”
“Afraid?” he helped her along, tipping his head towards her.
She let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Yeah. I am,” she admitted. “I’m terrified. What if I left and something happened again? Something worse? I don’t think I could live with the guilt. Not when I know I could’ve been here.”
Lake readjusted in his spot but didn’t relinquish her hand. “Hmmm.”
“Hmmm, what?” She nudged his shoulder playfully.
“It’s just… a heavy burden for one person to carry. You’re putting so much pressure on yourself, don’t ya think?”
“Maybe…” she conceded. “Just a little.” She’d think more about what he’d said later. When she wasn’t busy studying the way his fingertips brushed over the palm of her hand, back and forth, and then finally came to rest in the center.
“Youarehelpful, ya know? Some would even say… charming.” She bit the smile forming across her lips, and squeezed his hand. “Is he okay? Your dad?”
Lake sighed and turned his face to hers, intertwining their fingers and resting their hands on the couch beside her. “Yeah… he’s… He’ll be okay. I hope. He’s sick. He had pneumonia a while back, and he just hasn’t recovered the way the doctors said he should. They’re running tests… There’s nothing I can do but be here for him and my mom. And I’m glad to be home. You have no idea.” He smiled and rested his head against the couch again.
“Me too,” she said, closing her eyes and, without realizing it, drifting into a deep sleep. No eye mask or ear plugs necessary.
They were awakened a few short hours later by a crowd of youth singing, once again, over their innocently sleeping bodies. Georgia on her belly, lying across the couch with her hand stretched to the floor and Lake on his back, lying below the couch, his hand still holding hers.
When Georgia returned home, readied for her shift at the shop, and barreled down the stairs, she found Lake at a previously unoccupied table. He smiled at her with all of his Lakelanddreamy, blue-eyed-wonderconfidence, and casually drank a cup of cocoa while she worked—never interrupting her customers or making conversation with her—but a huge, gorgeous, rumpled-hair and loose-sweatshirt distraction, just the same.
When he left an hour later, nodding casually at her on his way out, she looked back at his table and found a gift waiting for her, matching the others left before.
A bag ofonlygreen gummy bears, with a ribbon tied neatly around it.
10
