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Lachlin watches me for a moment. “And you still want it?”

“Yeah. That’s not the problem.” I look down at Jack, then back at them. “I just don’t know what the rest of my life is supposed to look like around it.”

Conlin is quiet for a moment before he says, “You went through some of this before Europe.”

“I know.” I remember those weeks better than I want to. I’d spent years trying to get Hollow North to that point, then finally got the opportunity and started questioning what six months away would mean. I worried about missing family stuff, about being gone too long, even about whether we were ready for something that big. Then we went, and it ended up being one of the best things I’ve ever done.

“You almost talked yourself out of being excited about it,” Conlin says. “Not because you didn’t want to go. You were worried about everything you’d be leaving here.”

“This isn’t the same.”

Lachlin shakes his head. “No, it isn’t. You had all of us before, but there’s more here for you now.”

Jack shifts against my chest at the sound of his dad’s voice, and I glance down at him. His fingers are still curled around mine, so small they barely reach halfway around it. I run my thumb over his knuckles. “It’s not just Jack.”

“I know,” Lachlin says.

I picture Ruby cross-legged on my couch with a sketchbook, showing up with food because she knows I forgot to eat, standing behind the counter at Black Fern while someone tells her they drove two hours because they wanted her work.

Her life here keeps getting fuller. More settled. More hers. She’s building exactly what she came to Redwood Point for, and while I’m gone, all of that is going to keep moving forward without me.

And I have no idea what it means for us if my life keeps pulling me away from the one she’s creating here.

Conlin studies me for a moment before he says, “Having more to come home to doesn’t automatically mean you’re supposed to stop leaving. But every time you talk about Ruby and the tour, you sound like you’re waiting for one of them to eventually make the other impossible.”

“That’s not what I want.” I shift Jack against my chest and look down at him for a second. “I just don’t know what this is supposed to look like if touring becomes a regular part of my life.”

Lachlin leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Briar knew what my job looked like when we got together. She knew there would be nights I got called out, holidays I missed, plans that changed because somebody needed help. I’m not saying our jobs are the same. I’m saying being with someone whose work pulls them away sometimes means you figure out how to make the rest of it work together.”

I look at him. “I don’t want Ruby rearranging her whole life around mine.”

“Then don’t expect her to.” Lachlin’s answer comes easily. “Figure out what you can give her when you’re on the road. Figure out what being together looks like when you’re gone. Let her decide what works for her instead of trying to solve both sides of it yourself.”

I sit with that for a while, Jack warm and quiet against me. Part of me would still rather one of them hand me a clear answer, something I could follow without thinking this hard about it. But they can’t tell me what the next few years are supposed to look like any more than I can.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been fighting.

Jack starts to fuss, so I rub his back and hum the same melody I’ve been using with him since the hospital. His body relaxes against mine after a minute, and the room goes quiet again while I keep thinking about everything they’ve said.

A little later, Briar wakes up and comes into the room looking tired enough that none of us gives her grief for sleeping through dinner. She takes Jack from me, and I stay another twenty minutes before heading home.

The lights are on at Black Fern when I drive through town. Ruby’s must still be there.

I can see movement through the front window as I pass, probably Ruby cleaning up or finishing paperwork before she closes. In another hour she’ll head home, maybe stop for something to eat, maybe come next door if my lights are on. Her life will keep moving whether I’m here or not, and I think that’s the part I haven’t really let myself sit with.

If Hollow North keeps moving forward, there will be another tour after this one. Maybe not immediately and maybe not for as long, but this career isn’t going to suddenly become local because I fell in love with someone who is.

If this works the way I’ve always wanted it to, there will always be something next. I’m going to have to figure out what that means for the life I’m building, not just for this tour, but for everything that comes after it.

Chapter twenty-five

RUBY

The last client of the day leaves Black Fern a little after five with a fresh bandage over her forearm and strict instructions not to pick at anything no matter how much it itches.

I’m wiping down my station when the owner appears in the doorway.

“You have a minute?”