At the end of the night—after Abby and Jonathan have made a flimsy excuse to slip off together, clearly forourbenefit even more than theirs—Thorn and I find ourselves alone in the rock garden.
It’s dark out now, a hot summer night, the globe lights casting a warm glow on everything. We’re standing in the back corner at a high table, sipping on chilled white wine, an excuse to linger just a little longer.
I have no idea how long he’s staying.
I think both of us have been reluctant to acknowledge the reality that, after this fancy evening in our fancy clothes is over, we’ll have to go back to our regular lives.
“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” I say quietly, once I’m down to my last two sips of sauvignon blanc.
I’ve been avoiding the last two sips for ten minutes now, becauseonce my wine is gone, this magical night will be that much closer to being over.
“I know,” he says with a shy smile. “Neither can I.”
He sets his wineglass down, and just like that, his smile fades.
This is it, I think.This is the part where we acknowledge reality.
“So,” he says slowly, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Me too,” I interject, afraid of facing what will inevitably come next. “I’ve been thinkinga lot.”
Before he tells me how impossible it is for us to be together, even though we’ve been living in wishful-thinking land ever since I flew home from California, I just want him to know I’ve been trying to come up with ways we could make it work.
“I found a cabin,” I say in a rush. “Out in California, close enough that we could see each other whenever you’re not at work—I would really miss Abby and Jonathan, but I can already do my job remotely, so at least that would be taken care of, and—”
“Sadie.”
All the words on the tip of my tongue evaporate at the sound of his voice, so gentle but firm.
“What if,” he says slowly, reaching into his jacket pocket, eyes intensely on mine, “I stayed here instead?”
He opens his palm, revealing a key.
My mouth falls open. I blink, surprised by the tears that have instantly sprung up—
Surprised byhim.
“I got a new job with a tour company that does hikes out in the Hill Country,” he says. “Got a place of my own here in town, too.”
He tells me how the job offer was on the table for months, but then they found someone else—which fell through when the guy decided not to move after all. Thorn said yes in a heartbeat when they reachedback out, even though he was afraid of breaking the news to his current boss. She was surprisingly supportive, and insisted they’ll find a way to make things work without him.
I take in everything heisn’tsaying: his role at the tour company in California was so much more than just a job for him—it was his entire life. It was home.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I ask, afraid that if I breathe too hard, this sparkling glimpse of hope will turn to ash.
He grins. “Already done,” he says.
“Isn’t it hard to leave someplace behind when it means so much to you?” I’ve been struggling with the same questions, and Austin doesn’t mean nearly as much to me as the Sierras mean to Thorn.
“I’ve spent my entire life there,” he says. “It’s hard in some ways, but at the end of the day, it was surprisingly simple.” He grins again, then stashes the key back in his pocket. “It’s time for a new adventure. A new adventurewith you, if you’re up for it.”
I throw my arms around him, wishing more than anything we were inside a waterfall cave right now, tucked away in secret where I could kiss him for as long and as hard as I want to.
There will be time for that, I realize: there will be time foreverything. Fancy dinners, campfires under the stars, whatever we decide, wherever we end up. For once, I don’t have to know all the details to know it’s exactly what I want.
I’d follow this man on an adventure anywhere.
I’d trust him with my life.
