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“You tried to save me, firecracker.”
I felt the fury radiating off of her as she sputtered, “Firecracker!”
But my eyes were on her mouth. Fuck, those lips. They were pink and soft and I wanted badly to run my thumb along them. Or my tongue. Could she still be my muse? Could I write this into my book? Or did I want her all to myself?
She stood up. “I am done. You can hire someone else to fix your fucking sink,” Winona said, before spinning on her heel, water slopping behind her.
My chest clenched. How could I have been okay with her leaving before? It felt like death now.
“Wait!” I yelled. Too loud. She was almost at the back door. She didn’t stop. “Winona!” I sprung out of the pool. “Please.” It wasn’t just about the story now. It was well beyond that.
Winona paused just before stepping over the threshold. When she spun on me, her expression was still livid. Her mouth was open, but she must have seen whatever it was in my eyes that was so desperate for her to stay. The part that was broken inside. Because she faltered.
“Please stay, Winona. Not to fix the sink. Just to… stay.”
Her mouth fell open, then shut again. “What are you doing here, Mitchell?”
“Trying to get you to stay.”
“No, I mean here. In Quince Valley.”
I hesitated. I considered making something up. But I saw how she put things together behind those stormy blue eyes. She’d had to suss out lies before.
“Hiding,” I finally said. I didn’t realize that was the truth until I said it.
“Did you commit a crime?”
“Not that I know of. I’m trying to finish writing a novel.”
She blinked, but didn’t ask me anything about it, which was good, because I wasn’t sure what to say about it.
“Why?”
I was surprised by that question. So surprised, I told the truth. “Because my father thinks I couldn’t. It’s going terribly, in case you’re wondering”
“I wasn’t. But you can tell me why?”
“Because it’s depressing as shit.”
“Then why don’t you write something different?”
“What?”
“If it’s no fun.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. But she wasn’t waiting anyway.
“What happens when you finish?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, then slid my hand down my face and beard. “I have to go back to Seattle in…” I did the math. “Three weeks. Whether the book happens or not. I’ll just either go back a complete fucking failure or…” Or something else. I hadn’t thought clearly about what it would be like if I pulled off the book. What would I feel? Triumph? Vindication? Or would it just be one more thing that left me unfulfilled? Would I carry on as I had for years, like a machine? A man striving for happiness that felt just slightly out of reach? “Or like a man with a liberated fucking heart.”
Thunder sounded; louder now. As dramatic as I was being.
But Winona didn’t seem to notice. “So until then you’re a tortured artist? Is that why you’re acting like you’ve lost your damn mind?”
Maybe I should have been insulted. But her talking to me like this felt like I was a normal person. Someone people didn’t have to be afraid of or sycophantic with.
Maybe that’s why I let my whole self show. “I just… being alone feels like something scraping out my fucking insides right now. And you being here feels like something—” I cleared my throat, unsure. I didn’t say shit like this for a reason.
