His half-chuckle of disgruntled amusement has her biting her lip to keep from asking ten more questions on the spot. It is always so difficult to avoid quizzing him, like she has access to a human encyclopedia. Her curiosity has always been so strong, and her answers so few and far between. Information was rationed in her old life. It’s hard to break the habit of wanting to know everything all at once.
“I went there because they needed a charter pilot. The pay was good, and it was as far from home as I could get.‘No one comes all the way out here if they’re not running from something.’That’s what Gwen always said.”
“Where the two of you…close?”
There’s an implication in her question, though it remains non-judgmental. He hasn’t spoken much about what happened up there aside from his misplaced guilt at not being able to save her. Addison is desperate to fill in some of the blanks in an effort to understand him better.
“Not like that. She was engaged. We were friends. She was the only one I’d had in a while. I kept to myself after the divorce, but she was kind to me. Always made me coffee when I dropped off supplies, and we’d get to talking. She was waiting for her fiancé to join her so they could get married up there.” He snorts out a good-natured laugh. “Crazy, right? Who gets married at twenty below? But she was so damn excited, and then the world ended and…anyway, what’s done is done.”
He is quiet for a long moment, while she counts the strokes of his thumb as they wave absently over her upper arm. The repetition is soothing, almost hypnotic, and she wonders if he even realizes he’s doing it.
“I lost count of how many bears I’ve seen. It wasn’t more beautiful than Sedona, I’ve seen both. It was a different kind of beauty. Haunting in a way, especially when the northern lights lit up the sky. Have you heard of those?”
“Yes, they were in our textbooks. I bet seeing them in person was magical.”
“Yeah. Magical.” He exhales slowly. “It’s weird, isn’t it? That even with everything falling apart, things like the northern lights still exist as if nothing has changed. The sun keeps coming up, the animals keep multiplying, the seasons still change.”
“The world doesn’t need us to keep turning.”
“That’s dangerously rational for someone convinced we must repopulate it.” His response lacks the usual bite that might accompany such a statement. There’s subtle affection in it that she wonders if she heard correctly.
“Remember when I told you my faith was being tested?”
“Mhmm.”
“That started long before the virus hit. I just didn’t have many options then.”
As a child, she was full of unshakable belief in their mission because it had been drilled into her from day one. Then, as she got older, it had been difficult not to wonder if all their rules and predictions had as much basis in reality as she had been told. It is one thing to want to break free of the mold, to give herself and her daughter a chance at a safer life, and another thing entirely to leave everything and everyone she knew behind. The world is vast and unkind to those who walk it alone. That’s what the elders would say, and there had been no question that anyone who left the fold would be alone.
And so she stayed until the pandemic forced her hand.
“Do you feel like you’ve got options now?” he half whispers, the exhaustion in his voice clear, the question careful, as if he’s afraid of the answer.
“I do, actually. The last thing I should be feeling in these circumstances is freedom. But there is no one else to plan my life out anymore. No one to tell me who to marry, what role to play, who to love.” Her voice nearly catches on the last word as it slips out without much thought. “It is all up to me now. I hope I make the right choices.”
“You will. You always try to do the right thing. This world still needs people like that.”
He speaks as if he hasn’t done right by her and her daughter since they met. As if he hadn’t shown up every time it mattered. His breathing turns shallow, and the gentle touch moving feather-light across her upper arm stills, telling her he’s fallen asleep, so she keeps quiet and shuts her eyes, wishing daylight would take a little longer to break through the horizon this morning and allow her another few minutes in his arms, to pretend this closeness is something she can keep.
* * *
It’s not until later that morning that she thinks about kissing him. Not right away. It isn’t the first thought she has the moment she opens her eyes. It can’t be when Emma is nearly vibrating at the bedside, trying to jostle her awake.
“Did you sleep enough? It’s almost noon. Wyatt said to let you rest, but it won’t be morning soon, and we have a surprise for you that works best in the morning.”
Addison sits up, swinging her legs over the edge and noting that the other side, where Wyatt slept, is empty. The sheets arecool now, the memory of being in his arms already fading. “A surprise? What is it?”
Emma shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. Come on, come on! You have to close your eyes, and I’ll lead you into the kitchen.”
Whatever is going on, it’s quite elaborate. She won’t spoil her daughter’s happiness by refusing to play along. It doesn’t matter that she can’t seem to find a spark of it within herself just yet.
The scent of something sweet lures her down the hall as she dutifully allows herself to be dragged toward it. Warm spice and unmistakably thick buttercream. The clanking of plates and forks has her curious, and the smell straight out of a bakery has her mouth watering.
“Okay, you can open them!” Emma exclaims.
What Addison finds in front of her is the last thing she expected. Wyatt, with specks of flour in his hair and his sleeves rolled up, is slicing thick cinnamon rolls onto their respective plates with a tentative grin on his face. Steam curls lazily into the air from the old gas stove, warming the space another ten degrees.
“The two of you baked these together?”
