Page 84 of Harvest Heat

“I’m sure everyone is talking about me now.”

“Everyone is worried about you,” she said.

“How much does everyone know?”

Tessa sighed. “We didn’t give any detail details, but of course, there’s speculation. There are some people who insist you’re just sick, probably with the flu. I’ve made sure everyone knows I’m checking on you and making sure you’re okay.”

“Thank you. For checking on me and keeping everybody away.”

She hugged him tighter. “Of course.”

“So we’re here to get you out of the house again,” Finn said.

Rhys shook his head. “I’m not ready for that. I don’t know when I’m ever going to be ready.”

Tessa ignored him. “We’re also here to help you figure out how to talk to Caleb again.”

“He probably hates me now.”

Marianne shook her head. “He doesn’t hate you. He misses you.”

“Why would he? I treated him like shit.”

“You treated him like someone who’s scared,” Marianne said. “You probably do need to apologize to him, but he doesn’t hate you.”

Tessa spoke next. “Caleb’s not been himself. He’s going to work, but he’s lost his sparkle.”

Rhys frowned, not wanting to believe her. “Maybe he was just having a bad day when you saw him.”

“No,” Jonah said. “I’ve never seen Caleb look so sad. Until a few days ago, he always had a smile on his face when I walked into Cloud Nine, but he no longer looks like he’s full of sunshine. He used to match the colorful walls and the brightly decorated menus, but now he’s like a rain cloud.”

The thought of Caleb being sad instead of full of sunshine made Rhys feel like his dinner might come back up. He lay back against the couch and tried to remember how to breathe.

“We’re not telling you this to make you feel worse,” Tessa said. “But we want you to understand that Caleb is affected by this. He wants to see you again, but he also knows that it needs to be you coming to him.”

Rhys was sure everything they said was true, but he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to do it, no matter how much he wanted to.

“What do you want, Rhys?” Jonah asked. “If you knew you could fix this, what would you want?”

“I want to be with Caleb, but I don’t want everybody watching us, talking about us, making us the center of attention.”

“Okay, now what do you want here in Frostwick Harbor without the ability to change everyone?”

Rhys took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let himself imagine the different paths he could take. He could run away from Frostwick Harbor, but he didn’t want to do that, no matter how scared he was.

He could apologize to Caleb but say that it was just too hard to have a relationship, and they could go their separate ways. That might kill him, because no matter what, he was going to see Caleb all the time, and now all his friends and probably half the town knew there was something between them.

Or he could apologize to Caleb and tell him he didn’t care what anyone else said; he wanted to see what it was like to be together publicly, openly, for as long as they could make it last. Eventually, he would tell Caleb that he loved him. Or maybe he should start there, but that was the scariest idea of all.

“I want to be with Caleb.”

“Good answer,” Marianne said.

Tessa had a huge smile on her face as she said, “Let’s figure out how to get you there. He deserves an apology and an explanation. He cares for you, but you’ve got to make him believe that this time, you’re not going to run.”

Rhys blew out a long breath. “Are you sure that’s even possible?”

“With all of us working together,” Finn said, “it’s absolutely possible.”