"Uh oh," he says with a nervous inflection.
"When Journey called me home yesterday, it was because Ace unexpectedly showed up at my house, since I didn’tanswer any of his calls, and my phone had been off."
While still watching for a reaction, Brett’s jaw swivels from side to side for a quick second before he lets out a sigh. "What happened?"
"I told him to leave. In fact, Journey did too. He left."
"Good," Brett says. "Do you still have things you need to work out with him or something?"
I pull my gaze away from Brett’s profile and stare through the hypnotizing snow. "He bought the house in South Carolina. My name wasn’t even on the deed. We split the cost of some furniture, but I took my valuables, and I don’t care if I ever see anything I left behind. I need to have my car shipped up here still, but it’s the only loose end. The car and the loan is in my name."
"That’s a lot to go through in a matter of weeks," he says.
"Well, when life suddenly appears in black and white, everything becomes clearer. I knew my dad would not be okay, and I didn’t think twice about coming home to stay. It was almost like an invitation to run away and leave the crapbehind. The whole ‘everything happens for a reason’ thing sucks in this situation, but the signs were more than obvious."
Brett pulls into the back lot behind the firehouse and presses on the emergency brake before shifting the gear into park. "Would you have hung onto him—Ace—if your dad hadn’t gotten sick?"
It’s a fair question, one that has run through my head a few times, but I felt trapped behind my kitchen window, staring out at the lives I watched parade down my sidewalk—the lives I wanted to be a part of. "I knew we were coming to an end. I just hadn’t pulled the trigger. I hadn’t been happy in more than two years with him. I didn’t know how to make the next move—maybe I was scared to walk away. I invested time into a relationship, knowing it wasn’t going anywhere, but also knowing I’m not getting any younger and desperately wanted the life everyone around me seemed to have."
Brett looks over at me and offers a gentle smile. "I know what you’re saying. You think you have your whole life planned out, then the path disappears, and you’re lost without direction, blindly walking ahead, hoping fate will take you by the hand at some point." Brett takes my hand and lifts my knuckles to his lips.
I lean my head back into the seat and melt with a complacent feeling warming my chest. "Thanks for taking my hand when I got lost."
"Well," he says with a sigh, "I know whatyou’regetting for Christmas this year."
I chuckle, wondering what the punchline of this joke will be. "What’s that?"
"A new GPS," he says, smiling with pride.
I free my hand from his and swat at his arm before stepping out into the snow.
Brett opens the back door of the shop and gestures for me to walk in ahead. I continue until reaching the front, where Mr. Crawley is jotting down some notes on a piece of paper.
"Is the truck is having issues again?" Mr. Crawley asks.
"It sure is," I tell him.
"I told your father that thing was a lemon the day he bought it, but he wouldn’t listen."
"Yeah, ‘There isn’t anything that can’t be fixed,’ he would always say," I tell Mr. Crawley.
"I’ve heard this many times," he replies. "Anyway, there’s a gentleman checking out the Quinn Pine up front, but if you two are all set, I need to get downstairs. One of the machines is acting up."
"Yeah, we’re good, go ahead," Brett tells Mr. Crawley, tappinghis hand against his back. "Thanks for covering the shop."
"I’ll go see what the customer wants," I say as he squints toward the front of the store at the guy. He’s behind a display, so it’s hard to see much.
"Okay, shout if you need anything.”
Thanks to the bottles displayed in the shape of a Christmas tree, I didn’t know what I was walking up to until I came face to face with Ace, again. My gaze floats to the ceiling as I pull in a deep breath. "Dammit, why are you here?"
"I’m here for the week. What else should I do?"
"I don’t know. Go visit your family or something? Following me isn’t the answer."
Ace is inspecting a new bottle of Quinn Pine as if he’s interested in the bourbon, which I know he isn’t. He can’t stand the taste, and he has made it clear many times through the length of our relationship, more so than I have ever shared my distaste for the liquor. "What can I do to make things right, Melody?"
The badgering of these questions is becoming exhausting. I haven’t given him hope or the idea of there being anything he can do, yet, the question continues to spill off his tongue as if my answer will eventually change. "You can’t," I tell him, taking a split second to look toward the back of the store where Brett is focusing on the register’s computer.
