She’s wearing jeans and a jacket, and the slippers I got for her when she said her feet still got too cold in the cabin. She’s pacing up and down the hallway, her voice carrying to me.
Every time she reaches the end of the hallway, I catch a glimpse of her copper hair glinting in the sun. Then she turns around and walks back down the hallway, her voice getting quieter, but still loud enough that I can listen to the entire conversation.
So much for being honest with me.
The wind whips around the front porch and sends a cluster of leaves rising up into the air, swirling above the dirt path. My eyes blur, and focus on my own reflection in the door.
It’s not like Lacey has outright said that she planned to stay or that we were going to take this thing between us seriously. It’s not even like she’s said, outright, that she plans to quit her job.
But she’s been working on her cozy game with Vanessa on the side, and she signed up for the turkey trot race in Low Pines on Thanksgiving. There were signs that she was planning on staying and making this place her home.
Not to mention what she said to me that night, when I told her the entire truth about what had happened to me. About everything I’d lost.
Yeah. But maybe I’m a message from the universe, too.
She and I are too different. This has always been temporary, and I’m the one who convinced myself that it was any other way. Lacey said she would be honest with me, but here she is, saying things to her mother that she hasn’t said to me.
I was under the impression that the job at Gaia didn’t mean that much to her, that she was becoming disillusioned with it. But that’s clearly not the case.
Even if she does like me, and there’s something here, can I stomach the thought of taking her away from the career that she loves?
For a moment, I consider the alternative to her moving here: me moving to San Francisco.
I picture myself in the city, surrounded by all those people, standing in line to order coffee in a place half the size and twice as expensive as Affogato ’Bout It. I think about the last time I lived in a place like that, and the reception I got from people different than me.
I immediately dismiss the idea. I would never be happy, even with Lacey, living in a place like that. Not after twelve years in the mountains.
Which means I would be expecting her to make all the concessions. She would have to give up her job, her life, her home, and I would be losing nothing. Of course her mother is suspicious of this thing; I might actually be thinking only of myself.
“Max?”
I startle, realizing I’ve been standing on the porch all this time, and now Lacey is standing in front of me, having opened the screen door. She’s shivering — likely because all the cool air has been pouring into her cabin — and blinking at me.
“What are you doing?” she asks. “Why didn’t you come in?”
“I, uh—” I clear my throat, thinking about the furniture set that I finished for Warren this morning. Trying to wipe my face of any emotion, I say, “Sorry, I can’t do the firewood thing. I wasn’t able to finish the project like I thought, so I came to let you know.”
She doesn’t ask why I didn’t text her, which tugs at my heart. We know each other well enough for her to know that I really would drive up here to let her know, rather than digging out my phone.
“Oh, okay,” she says, tucking a piece of that copper hair behind her ear and looking up at me mischievously. “Well, do you want me to come with?”
“Nah,” I say, a little too quickly and a little too harshly, but it’s hard to look at her like this, hard to keep up this facade that nothing is wrong when it feels like my chest is squeezing in on itself.
I heard her saying it herself: she’s going back to the city. She doesn’t think this thing is going to last.
“If you’re there, I won’t get anything done,” I add lamely, before turning and hurrying back down her front porch, waving to her over my shoulder when she calls after me with something I can’t make out.
The drive back to my place is quick. When I swing out of my Jeep, I head inside, and when Dona jumps onto the bar, meowing loudly at me, I bury my face in her fur, breathing deeply and trying to settle my thoughts.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been standing there until there’s a rapid, insistent knock at the door. My heart jumps, then I realize it’s probably Warren, come to pick up the completed pieces even though I told him I would bring them into town the next time Lacey wanted to come down.
Stalking to the front door, I grab the handle and throw it open, frowning at the person on the other side.
But it’s not Warren leaning on the door and giving me a sly smile.
It’s Lacey, her slippers covered in mud, her gaze wild and furious, her hair frazzled from what must have been a frantic walk down the side of the mountain.
My first instinct is to pull her inside and warm her up, to apologize for not giving her a ride, but then I remember why I left in the first place.
