Getting up on my knees to grab his phone off the nightstand, I feel a gentle slap on my ass. I jolt up, pushing him by his shoulder while he laughs at me. I roll my eyes and hand him his phone.
He stifles his laugh and looks at his phone before answering. “What’s up, James?” He’s quiet for a beat. “Already? It’s only—” He pulls the phone away from his ear to look at it and puts it back. “—four o’clock.”
He looks at me and gives a tight smile, holding up a finger. I lie down and stare at the ceiling. When I start to space out with my thoughts, Milo comes crashing onto the bed, licking my face.
“Milo, I didn’t even hear you come in. How are you so sneaky?” I scratch his ears and chin.
“I need to go.” Rowan gets up, puts his jeans on, and tucks his phone into his pocket.
I sit up to look at him. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, James needs me to get there a little earlier than expected. The band that’s playing tonight has a lot of people coming to the brewery.” He bends down, his abs crunching in the process, grabs his shirt, and quickly puts it back on.
We walk out of the room with Milo following us. I cross my arms over my chest—suddenly feeling cold with goosebumps after the warmth from his body disappears—and watch him put his shoes on. I look over at the kitchen counter and remember we were in the middle of baking cookies.
“Oh, well, maybe I’ll see you there later tonight? If you want?” I ask hesitantly.
He lifts himself back up and gives me a warm smile. “I’d love that.”
He grabs me by the waist, pulling me into him, and I bury myself against his chest. I inhale the scent of vanilla and strawberry that surrounds us from our hair washing earlier. I feel one of his hands stroke my back in comfort as he kisses the top of my head.
My mind takes me back to the day I left. He was holding me the exact same way and kissing me on top of my head. Except that time, I was crying and telling myself to stay with Rowan.
forty
ELLIE
I wokeup the next day, staring out of my bedroom window. The sun cascaded through the thin curtains, a summer breeze pushing past them and into the room. Last night, I dreamed about what Rowan, and I did in this bed yesterday. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would ever happen again.
Not just what happened between us, but also my willingness to bake—and enjoy it—even though we made a mess.
I didn’t have any hesitations when I told him we would make cookies. I didn’t think about my anxiety, work, or messing things up.
Plus, Rowan desperately needed to know how to makegoodcookies. I don’t know what he did wrong with his, but they tasted like I was eating chalk.
I saunter from the guest house to my parent’s house in a pair of cozy sweatpants and a shirt and open the patio door into the kitchen. I see my dad sitting in a lounge chair, reading a book. He looks over at me and smiles.
He closes his book and takes off his reading glasses. “Hey, kiddo. What brings you here?”
I sit on the sectional, pulling my feet up with me, and let out a sigh. “I need to talk to you and Mom about something. It’s actually really important.” I pick at the string hanging from the band of my sweatpants.
Dad sits up straighter. “Is everything okay? Apart from everything else you’ve been dealing with?”
I let out another sigh and gave him a tight smile. “It’s part of why I came back home, to think, but I didn’t tell anyone about it until the other day when I told August.”
He nods slowly and gets up from the chair. “Let me go grab your mother.”
He walks past me and pats my shoulder. His footsteps sound further away as he walks up the stairs to the bedroom. I hear the clock that hangs from the wall in the living room tick. Each tick reminds me that each second that goes by, the closer we get to summer being over and me having to return to New York. A place that doesn’t feel like a home anymore.
I sit with my thoughts and think about the offer that was given to me. I was in the middle of preparing dishes for the night's menu. Chocolate mousse that was sprinkled with gold flakes. Chocolate mousse and gold flakes. That was when I knew what I was doing wasn’t passionate but pretentious.
Ellie, in culinary school, would have found that incredible, different, and spectacular. Gold on chocolate? What an insane concept. I laugh at myself when I think about it now. There’s no passion in that. No heart or love. It was just the next thing to get in a magazine and be bragged about.
“Honey,” Mom says to me.
I look at my parents, who are sitting in front of me. I didn’t hear or see them come in. I don’t know how long they’ve been here waiting, how I look to them. I shake the thoughts from my head and pull myself together.
“You wanted to talk to us about something?” Mom asks.
