“Levi.”
I pick up the phone, glance at the screen, and set it back down. “She can wait.”
“What does she want?”
“To talk about timelines and decisions I don’t want to think about right now.” I reach across the table and take her hand. “Right now, I just want to be here with you, eating slightly burned breakfast food.”
She smiles, but there’s a crease between her eyebrows that wasn’t there before. “We should probably talk about it eventually.”
“Eventually. Not today.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“That’s vague.”
“I’m a vague person.”
“You’re a stubborn person.”
“Also true.” I squeeze her hand. “I just…I spent so long waiting to be here with you. I’m not ready to let reality ruin it.”
She looks at me for a long moment before nodding, and the crease smooths out, and we go back to eating breakfast like two people who don’t have impossible decisions hanging over their heads.
It’s nice, but it’s also a lie, and we both know it.
After breakfast, we move to the porch.
The day has warmed into something soft and perfect with a salt breeze and blue sky overhead. Delilah curls up on the oversized chair with her feet tucked under her, and I settle next to her with my guitar because apparently I’m incapable of sitting still.
“Play me something,” she says.
“I played you the time capsule song already.”
“Play me something new.”
I strum a few chords, nothing in particular. My fingers find a melody I’ve been working on, something lighter than my usual stuff with a hint of hope underneath the longing.
“This one doesn’t have words yet,” I say.
“That’s okay. I like seeing you figure it out.”
So I play, and she listens, and for a few minutes everything feels exactly right.
Then I see her.
Penelope Waters is on the backporch of her house, coffee in hand, staring at us without waving or smiling.
“Levi?” Delilah has noticed me tense up. “What’s wrong?”
“Penelope’s staring at us.”
Delilah follows my gaze and her whole body stiffens.
Penelope raises her mug in a toast that somehow manages to feel like a threat. Then she turns and walks back inside, like she’s seen everything she needed to see.
“I hate that she owns this place,” Delilah mutters.
