“I built the home first. Never really chased anything after that.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Do you ever get lonely?”
I think about the winters. The long evenings. The silence that never bothered me until now. “I didn’t think I did.”
“And now?”
I meet her eyes. “Now I’ve got something to compare it to.”
She goes quiet. I can almost see the thought settling inside her, turning over, finding its place.
She smiles to break the weight of it. “When I get back home, my friends are never going to believe this trip.”
There it is.When I get back home.The words hit so fucking sharp. I keep my face steady and grab a couple plates from an upper cabinet.
“What’ll you tell them?” I ask.
“That I met a giant mountain man who actually chops wood.”
“I do other exciting things too.”
“Oh?”
“I fix fences.”
She gasps dramatically.
“The glamour.”
“I clean gutters.”
“I don’t know if my heart can take any more.”
I laugh, but the ache stays put. She’s going home. Of course she is. This trip was just an adventure for her. A story she’lltell over drinks. I invited her here because I couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye, but I never actually told her how long I wanted her to stay. But to her, this is just a few days, maybe a week at most.
I shove that thought down where it belongs. She deserves these days without me getting inside my own damn head.
The food finishes cooking, and we eat at the table beside the front window overlooking the trees. Rosalyn closes her eyes after the first bite.
“This is really good.”
“I told you I could cook.”
“You undersold yourself.”
“I don’t brag.”
“You really don’t.”
She reaches across the table and steals another bite from my plate.
“There you go again,” I say.
“What?”
“Stealing.”
“I prefer ‘sharing.’”
