* * *
By the timeI was done with the heating, Felix was sleeping in the passenger-side seat of the truck, curled up in my hoodie.
My heart turned to liquid as I watched him snuggle deeper into it, a soft sigh making his chest rise and fall.
My Felix.
I could still feel the heat of his body against me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’d been thinking about Felix a lot, lately, and seeing him again felt like I’d just… wished him into existence.
He didn’t exactly look like his life was a dream, though.
In sleep he looked younger than he had in the cabin, but I could see the dark circles under his eyes and the way he was holding his neck, awkward and stiff.
Whatever was going on, he hadstresswritten all over him.
Which explained finding him in a holiday cabin.
He woke with a start the moment I opened the door, blinking up at me wide-eyed and with his hair sticking up everywhere.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said, winding the seat back up. “I was just…”
“Resting your eyes, I know,” I said. “So, good news—heating’s fixed. Bad news, it’s gonna take a while before it warms up in there.”
Felix sighed. “I can huddle under my blanket until it does. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome, but…” I hesitated, uncertain. “You could also come to lunch with me?” Would Felix want that, after all this time?
I was the one who’d moved away and abandoned him, would he still be mad?
What I wanted most in the world right now was to sit down and eat with him now that we were both all grown up, get to know what his life was like, but maybe…
“I’d love that,” Felix said, his stomach growling as if it’d heard me. “And so would my tummy.”
I chuckled, which was slightly better than letting the excited giggle welling up in my chest escape. The last thing I needed was for Felix to know I was still a huge dork.
Felix closed his eyes again as we headed into town, the rain clearing up as we hit the main road.
“What brings you to Slow Falls?” I asked. Part of me wanted to hear that he was looking for me, but I knew that wasn’t true. Felix hadn’t known where I’d ended up, not after we’d moved away from Albany.
“My agent sent me here as punishment for missing a deadline,” Felix said.
“Really?”
Agent?What did Felix need an agent for?
“No. Well, she really did send me here, but it’s not a punishment. Or it’s notintendedto be a punishment, anyway. She’s trying to help.”
“Okay, so, stupid question…”
“Literary agent,” Felix said, and then wrinkled his nose. “That sounds so pretentious. She’s in charge of convincing publishers to give me money for making things up about imaginary people.”
“You’re a writer,” I said as I realized what he was telling me.
A little wave of happiness washed over me at the thought. Felix wasalwaystelling stories when we were kids, and always scribbling something in a notebook somewhere when we were older. He’d helped me with more elementary school essays than I could count.
“You sound as surprised as I am, like, every morning.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always been an incredible writer.”
