He nods, something shifting in his expression. “I wish I had something else to offer you, dude.”
I walk back to the hotel to pack, feeling numb. I’d like to lock myself in a dark room and scream for a few hours, but Eva calls. and I answer so quickly I think I scare her.
“Hey,” I practically shout. “I am so glad to hear your voice.”
She laughs. “You haven’t even heard me yet.”
“There you are.” I fall back on my bed, still in my meeting clothes, too tired to change. “Tell me something good.”
“Hm. Baabara escaped again. Pepper helped.”
“I am not familiar with Pepper.”
“You’ll hate her. She’s the naughty goat I showed you.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “She and Baabara formed an alliance. Gran says it’s an insurgency.”
“You got a goat? Forever?”
“Mm hm. My sisters came to visit and left Pepper for me. Eden’s going to come back with a hive of bees I’m supposed to learn to take care of.” She pauses. “How are things with work?”
I pause. “I don’t know what to say. It’s bad.”
Eva makes a compassionate-sounding noise. “I’m really sorry, Asher. When can you come home?”
I close my eyes, picturing her in her kitchen at Pierce Acres, phone pressed to her ear, maybe wearing one of my shirts she stole before I left. The image makes my dick twitch. “I have no idea, but I want to come home yesterday,” I say.
“So hop on a train.”
I close my eyes, knowing that going home means facing the music. That the life I spent years building is turning upside down. That my broken ankle is the least of my problems.
Eva’s voice breaks through my despair. “I want you to know there’s something to come home to, Asher. I’m here.”
The words land deep, in the place where I’ve been storing all my fears about people leaving. About being left.
“Eva—”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”
We’re quiet for a moment, just breathing together across the miles.
“My sisters think you’re good for me,” she says. “Even Esther, and she doesn’t approve of anyone.”
“I’m honored.”
She laughs again, and I hadn’t realized how comfortable I’d become around Eva until I was thrust into a world of other people. I tell Eva my only chance of keeping my job means relocating to the west coast, uprooting my whole life in a way I swore I never would. “I don’t want that,” I tell her. “I want—” I stop, suddenly aware of how much I’m about to say. “I want to come home. To Fork Lick. To you.”
“Asher…”
“I know we haven’t defined what this is, and I know I’ve been gone and that’s not fair, and I’ve probably been terrible at communicating?—”
“You have been.”
“I need you to know I’m not considering it. The job. I’m not secretly weighing my options or planning to leave. I’m coming back, next door to you, with nothing to show for myself.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “This feels really huge.”
“It is. For me. And it sounds like for you, too.”
“Yeah.”
