I couldn’t help but smile, but before I felt a boost of confidence, I heard footsteps and someone say, “Miss, I think you have the wrong car.”
At the sound of Connor’s voice, I whipped around to see him framed in the passenger door’s nonexistent window. He ran a hand through his hair, his summer tan making it seem more blond than red, and no one looked better in a white T-shirt than him. I’d never seen the silver watch on his wrist, but I instantly loved it.
A lump rose in my throat. “No,” I told him. “I definitely have the right car.”
“Alright.” He nodded once, his blue eyes stirring the butterflies in my stomach. “As long as you’re sure.”
And with that, he opened the door and hopped into the passenger seat. I laced my fingers together when he didn’t say anything else, both of us knowing the floor was mine.
Here goes nothing.
Or everything.
“If I wasn’t so attuned to my suspension and seat orientation,” I started, “I might not have realized I’d climbed into the wrong Jeep that night. Instead, I might’ve checked my texts and scrolled through Instagram for a while before cuing up a playlist and trying to start the car with the wrong keys. I might’ve spent so long dawdling that you might’ve discovered me.” I swallowed hard. “Which means we would’ve met then.”
Connor’s neutral expression betrayed nothing, but I swear something glinted in his eyes. It was enough to keep going.
“I wish we’d met just like that, but right here and now,” I told him. “It kills me to admit this, but we met at such a terrible time, Connor. We were pushed together right away, and you were right. I wasn’t my best self. There was so much going on; I didn’t know how to be.” I took a deep breath. “I thought Annie’s encouragement would make everything better. I thought I would be able to let go and push my problems aside for a summer fling, but I should’ve been as honest with you as you were with me.”
“Yes,” Connor murmured. “Although maybe notthathonest.”
I felt a twinge in my ribs, hoping he didn’t regret laying his feelings about me on the line.
“Things are different now,” I added, pulse pounding. “I’mdifferent now.”
“How?” He raised a slow, exaggerated eyebrow. I wondered if he knew it made the backs of my knees weak. “Do you haveless on your plate?”
I started to laugh. “No, I still have a heap.”
“Then…”
“My full plate is my shield,” I told him. “Icanshift the mashed potatoes to make room for stuffing. I would move them in a heartbeat, Connor, but I’ve been so afraid.”
“Of what?” he asked gently, though I suspected he knew.
“Loss,” I answered, because it had finally clicked into place. “First my mom, most recently my grandfather, and in between, my dad when he married Erica.”
I was ashamed to admit it, but in the deepest depths of my subconscious, I knew it was true. Ever since my walk with Erica, I’d been trying to see that so-called loss as a gain.
Because new family memberswerea gift.
“And I know I am going to lose Annie relatively soon,” I told him. “She is going to stop knowing me, and then one day she is going to leave us for a place with pearly white gates and a glass of perfectly chilled pinot grigio.” I blinked away tears. “The prospect of losing someone I love so much and so hard… I dread the idea of letting you in and losing you too, even if it’s in a different way.”
“Try adrasticallydifferent way,” Connor said. “And I hope that wouldn’t be the case, if we gave things another—areal—go.” He reached for my hand. “I understand how you feel, Olivia. I really do.” He sighed. “And everything on the Vineyard was too much too fast. I said I wasn’t an arm-twister, but I’m sorry if Itwisted your arm.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t. You offered me your heart.”
We sat there in silence for a few seconds.
“I think about it all the time,” he murmured, in this voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “I know we had fun together, but I would do most of it over if I could.”
I exhaled. “Christian Fox has this theory about time,” I said. “Timing good or bad, he thinks that if you want a happy ending enough, you can sweet-talk time to be on your side.”
“Mmm,” Connor hummed, then shifted in his seat. “You really wish we were meeting right here, right now?”
“Yeah.” I smiled bittersweetly. “I do.”
My pulse sparked when I heard his door unlatch, and I swallowed as he slid back onto the pavement. My throat was dry. He walked back toward Elkins with no goodbye.
