I don’t know how to fix this thing with Winnie, but I know I have to, because despite what I said, I’m not leaving Maine and I don’t want this thing between us to end. Life without her wouldn’t be easier or better. Life with her is what I want and I deserve to get what I want.
The street is eerily quiet and the trailer and cottage unsettlingly still as I approach. I stare up at the cottage for a long time, but I decide I need to be more presentable before I go in there and try to save this. And maybe I can dig up some Advil for this damn hangover. I open the door to the trailer and stop in my tracks. Winnie is asleep, curled up in the middle of my bed. And instead of wearing one of her dad’s sweaters, she’s wearing a hoodie of mine. She must have been waiting for me all night. I walk to the foot of the bed. She’s dead asleep, snoring lightly, which makes me smile. She’s on top of all the blankets and her bare legs are covered in gooseflesh. I notice there’s no wineglass or open wine bottle in the trailer. She didn’t try to drink her way out of the pain of our fight. That makes me very happy—and relieved. I walk to the small cabinet where I keep extra blankets and grab a throw. As I get ready to place it over her, I notice the paper with the crisp handwriting on it.
I can’t help but read the first line. It says My sweet Winona Skye and I know it’s the letter her dad wrote her before he died. I reach for it, so I can move it out of the way and make sure it doesn’t get crumpled. As I place it on the small night table, she wakes up.
“You’re home,” she whispers and starts to sit up.
“Keep sleeping,” I say softly and cover her with the blanket. “I have to shower anyway.”
“We should talk.”
“We should,” I agree and tuck the blanket around her. “And we will. I promise.”
She yawns and her eyes flutter closed but not before she sighs, “I don’t want you to go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I promise her and I mean it. I slip into the bathroom and clean up. In the shower, I realize I don’t just have a pounding headache, I have a scratchy throat too. That’s never been part of a hangover before. This aging thing sucks. I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that I can’t just curl up beside her and sleep this off, but I can’t. The house still needs work and if I skip a day I’m likely to miss my deadline. Jude might not mind if it takes me a little extra time, but I’ll mind. That’s not how I want the first job of my new company to go. Plus, I have a roofing job lined up after this and it has to be completed before the first frost.
When I step out of the bathroom, wrapped in only a towel, she wakes up again. She silently watches me as I dress, sleepy-eyed, still curled up on my bed. As I’m pulling my T-shirt over my head she sits up. I walk over to the bed and sit on the edge. “Were you waiting in here for me all night?”
She nods. “I wasn’t going to let it end like that.” Winnie sits up a little straighter. “I wasn’t going to let things end at all.”
I reach for her. We hold each other for a long time. Finally I say, “I was trying to find Cat’s grandmother’s necklace. The one I was accused of stealing back when we were kids.”
She pulls her head off my shoulder to look in my eyes. “What?”
“Cat hates me because I stole her grandmother’s necklace, and a bunch of other shit, when she had that party at her house when we were sixteen,” I say and stand up to retrieve the necklace. “Only I didn’t steal anything. Kidd did. I knew he did and didn’t do shit about it and I was caught with him when he was trying to sell some of the stuff so I was still guilty. But I took the complete fall because Kidd had spent the summer before in juvie and he was scared he’d be tried as an adult or get a harsher sentence. Also, his father had already caught him stealing from one of the plumbing jobs they’d done and nearly beat him within an inch of his life. And honestly, I just didn’t give a fuck what happened to me.”
“Jesus, Holden.” Winnie winces at my words. “You went to juvie for him? It ruined your chance at a hockey career?”
“Yeah.” I try not to let the dark, cold regret fill my chest like it usually does when I think about that. “I would have found another way to fuck it up, trust me. I was hell-bent on ruining my life. So in a way, it’s probably a blessing I did it because it straightened me out.”
I pause and pull the necklace from the jeans I left on the floor before my shower and carry it over to her. I lay it on the bed between us as I sit back down. “I remembered that this necklace wasn’t one of the ones we tried to sell at the pawnshop. This one Kidd gave to some girl he was dating. Kevin’s cousin’s friend. So I had Kevin track her down and that’s who you saw me meeting last night.”
“She still had it?”
“Yeah. I guess it was sentimental or something and she made me pay her a hundred bucks for it.” I roll my eyes. “But she gave it back. And then she chased me out to the parking lot and propositioned me. But that was it. Nothing more.”
“I know. I believe you,” she says and takes the necklace and runs her fingers along the pearls. “I can’t believe you went through all this and it wasn’t even your fault that it was stolen.”
“Cat’s opinion of me matters because she matters to you,” I say quietly. “And you, Winona Skye Braddock, matter so much to me it’s kind of fucking terrifying.”
She looks at me from under those thick ash-blond lashes and gives me the sweetest smile before leaning forward and giving me a gentle kiss. “You matter to me too. But honestly, I’m still a mess.”
“Your dad’s death is going to be hard on you for a long time,” I say as I take her hand in mine. “And honestly, it never fully leaves you. It’s always there, in the back of your chest with the door open, waiting for you to fall back into it. But you’ll be okay and that’s not going to scare me off.”
“It’s not just my dad…,” she admits and there’s an embarrassed look on her face. “I’ve been with one guy my entire adult life and he cheated on me. I can’t help thinking I did something to deserve it. Like I wasn’t enough. And Holden, if I’m not enough for you too…”
“I’m in love with you,” I blurt out and I know it’s early and she may think I’m crazy but it’s also a goddamn fact and if she’s doubting herself at all she needs to know.
“I’m in love with you too, which is why you terrify me too,” she confesses. I wasn’t expecting those words, and it’s like being surprised with a winning lottery ticket or a new car or something you didn’t deserve and were too scared to even hope for.
I grab her face in my hands and kiss her. She crawls right up on me and when the kiss breaks she hugs me and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel pure happiness.
And then my phone rings. I glance over at it and see Dave’s number. “I have to get that.”
“Of course,” she says and I stand up and grab my phone.
“Hey Dave,” I say, but I’m not sure he can hear me over his own coughing. Oh fuck. When he finishes coughing he proceeds to tell me he’s too sick to come to the job today. I believe him too. He sounds like shit. But after I tell him to take it easy and feel better and hang up, I see I have a text from Mike who is still sick and won’t be coming in. I start to swear a blue streak.
