He paused, then picked up his phone. He opened her page. There was still no new post.
Finn and Ivy had so much going on with preparing for the rally, then winning the rally, and now preparing for the state competition. He supposed she was too busy to post anything new.
Well, he didn't want to be the reason she didn't achieve her viral dreams. So he went to work.
He adjusted the cutting board. Shifted the bowl an inch to the left. Pulled open the blinds to let in natural light where it would hit clean without flattening everything out.
He didn’t like cameras. Didn’t like being on display. That was for the food. But for Ivy, for her, he'd do it.
He wanted to say he understood what the follows and the likes and all that virtual socializing meant to her. He didn't really. Didn't understand why she wanted to give strangers access to her. But it was important to her. So it was important to him.
Finn thought about Fran’s words.Heaven and earth.Finn would move them for Ivy if she asked. He'd meet her where she was. He'd stand in the light if that was what the moment required.
Finn was all in. He'd accept whatever Ivy was willing to give him. He'd hold on and hope that she never wanted to let him go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The truck started making the noise a mile out.
Not loud. Not catastrophic. Just… wrong.
Ivy felt the subtle shift under her hands on the wheel, the way the engine hesitated like it had lost its rhythm. She frowned, easing off the gas as the road curved toward the gated entrance and the Purple Heart Ranch came into view ahead.
The entrance was marked simply: a wooden sign between two posts; the lettering burned in rather than painted. Beyond it, the road curved gently, and the property opened up gradually, as if it was deciding how much to show you.
The wide fields ran gold and unhurried on both sides of the drive, the grass moving in a low wind that didn't seem to be in a hurry about anything. The mountains behind the property appeared soft at the edges. A pair of horses moved along the far paddock fence with the easy companionship of animals that had long since worked out their arrangement with each other and with the afternoon.
Everything about it was still. And then there was the truck.
The Sugar and Spite truck came up the drive like the static that came over a loudspeaker announcement in grade school;squeaky, unmodulated, and with a persistent hum. The truck was pink against the gold fields, the engine doing its uneven stuttering thing; the chassis giving a shudder over the cattle grid that sent the cardamom cakes she'd made this morning sliding in their container on the passenger seat. A dog near the garden fence lifted its head at the sound. One of the horses shifted.
Ivy patted the dashboard. "I know, I know. Just a little further."
The truck hesitated again, a long, slow stutter that felt more like a complaint than a mechanical failure, and then evened out just enough to get her to the mess hall lot. She pulled in and cut the engine and sat for a moment in the sudden quiet, listening to the truck tick and settle around her.
Then she exhaled and pushed the door open. Finn was already coming out. He must have heard all the commotion.
His expression was set in a frown she recognized now—not frustration, not annoyance, but assessment. He moved toward the truck with purpose, eyes already scanning, taking in what he could before she said anything.
A couple of the guys came around from the side of the building; boots on gravel, easy movement, the kind of presence that filled a space without crowding it.
"We’ve got it," one of them said, glancing at Finn. "Go on. We’ll fix the truck. You two worry about winning the competition."
Ivy stepped closer to Finn without thinking. He reached for her hand. The contact was grounding.
Real. That was the word. This was real.
Maybe she could have both. The show. The platform that would take everything she had built and expand it.
And this.
Him.
This place.
Maybe it didn’t have to be one or the other. Maybe she could go, film what needed to be filmed, and come back. Maybe she could build something there and still keep this—keep him—anchored here, something steady she returned to.
The thought settled in her chest, not perfect, not fully formed, but possible.
