It would suck so fucking bad when he left, because I could feel him both getting closer and farther away from me at the same time.
* * * *
Nothing really changed after Friendsgiving, except that I tried to go outside more. I did it in the mornings, because I knew Jack would be one of the first ones up.
He came with me a lot, and we walked around the house, making the loop bigger every day, until one morning we stood on the porch of Theo’s empty cabin.
It wasn’t that far, just across the small parking lot and the driveway, but it was still a milestone.
River had left for work, and we could hear Ben puttering around the cabin next to us.
“Do you think you want to start heading toward the stable tomorrow morning?” Jack asked casually.
I looked at the open sky between the house and the old stable and decided that I needed to try.
“Yeah. We can do that.” I took in a deep breath, tasting the clean morning air, chilly as it was. “And…I don’t know much about the area, but if there’s somewhere we could drive and maybe have a picnic in the car, I’d really like that.”
He tilted his head in thought. “Yeah, I’m sure we can figure something out. Hell, even just across the road in the preserve. There’s a parking lot if you drive to the entrance.” He gestured toward the road we could just see in the distance. It made a line through some fields and vanished into the trees that formed the preserve.
“Yeah.” I nodded and found myself smiling. “I like that. There’d be trees and we’d still be close to home.”
Jack smiled, too. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“But not yet. I want to get to the stable first.”
The door of the next cabin opened, and Ben stepped out. He didn’t notice us immediately. Instead, he moved to stand on the top step, reached his hands up to stretch as he inhaled loudly.
“Refreshing, isn’t it?” I asked, smirking.
The way he yelped was hilarious. He whirled around, one hand over his heart as the other clutched the pillar that supported the lip over the porch.
“We’ve been here for at least five minutes,” Jack stated. “And we’ve been talking.”
Ben rolled his eyes, but then his expression brightened. “You’re here!”
“That I am,” I deadpanned. “Tomorrow, we’ll see how far toward the stable I can get before poor Jack has to carry me back to the house.”
“Hey, that wasn’t part of the deal,” Jack rumbled playfully.
“I didn’t know we had a deal.” I grinned, then stepped onto the short path that connected the cabins to the driveway.
One more step. Another one. I stopped in the middle of the driveway and looked around.
To my surprise, the sky didn’t seem so oppressive anymore.
The snow had melted, and the weather was pretty nice. It was December already, somehow.
If I hadn’t known Jack wanted to go inside to start making breakfast, I would’ve asked to walk toward the stable now.
He joined me and gave me a knowing look. “Tomorrow morning.”
I nodded. “Tomorrow.”
* * * *
The next morning, the ground was covered with a fine layer of frost. Everything sparkled like crazy.
As soon as we stepped outside, I could hear the horses banging around inside the stable, and as usual, the dogs that were closest—Bucky and Sophia this time—came to greet us before going back to oversee Theo’s morning routine.
