“You’d have to take out a loan.”
I swallow. “I don’t even know if I have credit. And if I do, it’s bad. I’ve been getting paid under the table for years. A loan isn’t an option.”
The revelation sinks into the truck cab like a stone dropped into still water. We both just watch it sink.
“Does your mom know?” Forrest asks eventually. “What does she think?”
“I’m not telling her until I figure out the money situation. And the risk situation. And the—all of it.” I lean my head against the window. The glass is cold. “She walks through pain every day, Hawk. Watching her climb the flights of stairs to our apartment is like watching someone tortured. One time I had to carry her, it was so bad. She leaves the apartment less and less because I don’t think she wants me to see herlike that.Mum never complains and she never asks for help and she never, not once, feels sorry for herself. If I tell her there’s a chance and then I can’t make it happen—or worse, if I make it happen and it goes wrong?—”
“Hey.” Forrest’s voice is steady. The ranch-kid voice, the one that’s calmed horses and children and one very overwhelmed escort who is trying to dive headfirst into a situationship with a client. “One thing at a time. Figure out the money. Research the risk. Talk to the doctor. And when you’re ready, talk to your mom. But don’t carry this alone. That’s not strength. That’s just stubbornness with a martyrdom complex.”
“You sound like a therapist.”
“I sound like a dad. Same skill set, terrible pay. Like…no pay.”
I laugh. It comes out more like a pressure release than actual humor, but Forrest takes it for what it is and lets the silence fill back in, comfortable and undemanding, the way silence works between people who don’t need to perform for each other.
“Do you think she’s out of my league?” I ask, after a while. We’ve turned off the highway now and the houses have upgraded yet again—stone facades, circular driveways, the kind of landscaping that requires a full-time staff.
“What league?”
“Mate, look around.” I gesture at the neighborhood—wrought-iron gates, hedgerows taller than me, a BMW parked in front of a house that has a name on the mailbox instead of a number. “She grew up around here? She’s basically Alicia Silverstone fromClueless.”
Forrest gives me a look that’s equal parts confusion and concern. “What the hell isClueless?”
“Are you serious right now? It’s a movie. A classic. American cinema history.”
“Never seen it.”
“You are such a Gen Z.”
“We’re both Gen Z.”
“Yeah but I’m a cultured Gen Z. You’re a ranch Gen Z. You probably think cinema peaked withYellowstone.”
“Yellowstoneis a television show, and it’s a masterpiece, and I won’t hear otherwise.” He points the jerky stick at me. “But to answer your question—no. Nobody is out of anyone’s league. That’s some made-up bullshit guys tell themselves so they don’t have to risk getting rejected. If your heart’s in the right place and you treat her right, the rest is just geography and tax brackets.”
“That’s surprisingly wise for a man eating gas-station jerky at eight in the morning.”
“Wisdom and jerky are not mutually exclusive.” He chews. Swallows. Gets serious in the way Forrest gets serious—quietly, without announcement, like a sky going from blue to gray while you’re not looking. “But Saylor. If you’re really into Celeste—and I’m not saying you are, because you clearly haven’t figured it outyet even though literally everyone else has—maybe stop taking jobs from Rina for a while.”
I crack my knuckles one by one.Yeah, way ahead of you, buddy.“I haven’t taken one since the funeral,” I admit.
“Good. Keep it that way. At least until this crush passes.”
Crush? Dear God, I’m offering manual labor for a crush? Imagine if I loved this woman. I’m scared I’d volunteer to move a mountain. Although…if Celeste asked me to, oi, would I be tempted. I don’t know what it is about her. I’ve never seen so many layers to a person. Every time I encounter her it’s a new mystery revealed. A new challenge, accepted. A new adventure, begging for my attention. With the burden on my back and an impossible destination ahead, it takes a lot to stop me in my tracks. Celeste is…a lot. In all the right ways. But hearing all this from Forrest, who walked the same path and came out the other side with someone who loves him, makes it feel less ridiculous.
“No more jobs,” I say.
The GPS leads us off the main road and through a gate—actual gate, stone pillars, a security booth with a guard who checks our names against a list. Celeste called ahead. Even mid-breakdown, even barely answering texts for five days, she made sure we could get through.
The guard waves us through and the neighborhood shifts again. If the houses before were impressive, these are architectural declarations. Set back from the road on half-acre lots minimum, each one different—colonial, Tudor, a modern glass thing that looks like it was designed by someone who hates walls. Old trees line the street, the kind with trunks wider than this truck, throwing shade patterns across lawns so green they look Photoshopped.
“There,” Forrest says, slowing. “That’s the number.”
The house sits at the end of a curved driveway behind a row of mature oaks. My first thought is that Celeste’s description waseither incredibly humble or deliberately misleading, because this isn’t a house that needs fixing up. This is a house that needs a documentary crew and a historical preservation grant.
It’s Colonial. White clapboard, black shutters, a covered porch that wraps around the front and disappears around the side. Two stories plus what looks like a finished attic with dormer windows. The yard is enormous—not estate-enormous, not Eleanor-enormous, but the kind of big where a kid could run until they got tired and still have room left. There’s a detached garage, a stone path leading to a back garden that’s gone to seed, and a deck off the back that’s visible from the driveway and is, as advertised, in rough shape. A few boards are warped. The railing leans.
