I know there was so much there we both wanted to say. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left her kid in charge of an entire restaurant chain. And she should have been angrier, but she wasn’t and I had to find a time to thank her for that.
The elevator doors opened again and I was already searching for the first flight. It was in an hour and a half and I was forty-five minutes away from the nearest airport. I had to haul ass if I was going to make it.
“Winnie,” I said the moment I opened the door. “Winnie, this is wild, I know, but there was a fire and...”
My bed was empty. I could still see the imprint of her bodyon my sheets. She was gone. I’d have to run down to her room to say goodbye.
I threw everything I could find in my suitcase and zipped it up, not even bothering to check the bathroom for toiletries. One of Winnie’s hair ties sat there on the nightstand and I shoved it into my pocket.
After hitting a few buttons on my phone, I called an Uber and ran down the hallway to Winnie.
My knuckles rapped against the door so hard it shook. “Winnie,” I called. “Hey, Winnie... uh, something’s come up. Can you let me in?”
A few seconds passed. I looked at my phone. And then a full minute.
I tried knocking again. “Winnie,” I said her name more firmly this time. “I really don’t want to say goodbye through a hotel door.”
I pulled out my phone again and shot off a text in case she was in the restroom or somewhere else.
The minutes ticked past, and I got an alert that my ride was here. If I had any chance of making this flight, I had to go now.
My stomach tensed into a knot. I’d spent the last three weeks trying so hard to make our time together last that I hadn’t let myself consider what it might feel like to say goodbye.
But now that it was here and I was being robbed of my moment, all I could think of was the things I hadn’t said.
And she didn’t know.
She didn’t know that I loved her.
A text from a random Vermont number popped up.
Your Driver:Hey, the app says I should only wait for three minutes. Are you coming down or not
And then one from Tamara with a contact card attached.
Tamara:They’ve admitted Topher for observation. Working on Paul’s emergency contact info, but here’s his cell number.
I looked at Winnie’s door once more and reached into my pocket to leave her hair tie on her door handle. Like an addict, I held it up to my face and inhaled the scent of her. Orange and cinnamon and a sweetness that always seemed to linger in her hair and along her skin.
With a growl, I shoved the little piece of fabric back into my pocket and stormed off down the hallway with plans to text her and tell her all about the fire and why I had to leave early. With each step, something inside of me stretched thinner and thinner until I walked outside and realized that I’d left an entire piece of me up there on the fifth floor of the Edelweiss Inn.
I’d go home to take care of my family and my business and once that was settled, I’d get my Winnie. I’d cook for her every night and let her fall asleep nestled next to me on the couch and tear her clothes off with my teeth and I’d make her laugh so hard she cried and I’d be the kind of man she deserved.
This wasn’t the end of our story.
It couldn’t be.
Chapter Seventeen
Winnie
We once filmed an episode ofIn a Family Wayat an amusement park, and the actors got to ride all the rides for B-roll footage. I loved most of them—the roller coasters and log flumes and bumper cars—but there was one I’d absolutely hated: a giant barrel that spun fast enough to pin me against the wall while the floor lowered farther and farther down. I couldn’t stand the feeling of my stomach smashing back against my spine; I’d hated looking down to see my feet floating above the dropped floor, like the entire world had fallen away and there was nothing left but some invisible, crushing force to keep me from falling into nothing.
But I didn’t need the horrible barrel ride to feel that way, it turned out. All I had to do was listen to Kallum agree with Teddy Ray Fletcher out there in the hallway.
We were all embarrassed for her.
And yep, there had been that sick, about-to-vomit feeling, that pressure on my chest. The sensation that there was nothing but vacant air under my feet.
