“The couch pulls out,” I defended.
“I saw him climbing down from your window,” Dad confessed. “Didn’t take a genius to figure out why he’d want to be in your room without me knowing about it. You fell hard, huh?”
“Yeah,” I admitted softly. “Yeah, I… yeah. I love him, Dad.”
“Makes two of us, although I think you mean it a little differently.”
“Maybe, yeah,” I agreed, still trying to get a handle on everything I was feeling. Relief, joy, excitement.
But also an urgent kind of longing that made me want to be on the other side of the country, snuggled up under the blankets of my own bed, curled around Wes and watching the rain outside drip down a window I’d looked out of for twenty years of my life.
The feeling was so intense my eyes were stinging with tears.
This was what being homesick felt like, I thought. I didn’t miss a place. I missed afeeling. The feeling of being exactly where I was meant to be.
Wes was a part of that feeling. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel at home again if he wasn’t within arm’s reach.
“Well, if I was thirty years younger…” Dad teased.
“He’d leave me for you in a heartbeat,” I said.
“No. No, he wouldn’t,” Dad reassured me, voice soft and full of affection.
I needed a hug. From my dad, and from Wes, and from Seth and Andre and Mark and even Isaac, now that I didn’t feel like I needed to be jealous anymore.
I missed them all so much my stomach hurt when I thought about it.
“That boy loves you,” Dad said. “Trust me on this. I’ve never seen him so happy as when you’re around. Or so sad as when you’re not.”
Another pang in the pit of my stomach made me wince. I didn’t want Wes to be sad.
Which was a clue that I knew exactly how I felt about him. Like I’d move mountains to make him smile.
What I was considering was a small thing, in comparison.
“I’ve never been so happy as when he’s around,” I said. “Or missed anyone as much.”
“Then I think you know what to do,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Yeah, I do.”
31
Wes
After two weeksof missing Hayden so much it was like a permanent knot in my chest, the last straw was seeing a bigSOLDsign on the ice cream parlor.
I’d had this fantasy where Hayden called me one day to tell me he’d bought it, that he was coming home, that I wouldn’t have to miss him anymore.
I loved him with all my heart, and my heart was breaking. There’d been this chance for him to move here, and now it was gone.
I should’ve asked. I should’ve told him that was what I wanted, that I’d do whatever he needed to help him, that I’d be there for him and I’d love him so much that it’d all be worth it.
He could have moved into the guesthouse with me, and we could have had dinner with his dad all the time, and we’d have been sohappy. I knew we would.
But now he’d never come back here. Not without—
Wait.
