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“You were a Boy Scout?”
I feel more than see him shake his head. “Not at all, but it is my blanket and hot chocolate, so that has to count for something, right?”
I laugh. I’ve laughed more tonight that I have on a non-game night in a long time. I don’t know what it says about the environment or the company, but Warrick might not be as bad as I thought.
He maneuvers himself under the covers next to me, the left side of his body bumping against mine, and I ignore the way my belly flips and my cheeks heat at the innocent touches. Once we’re shoulder to shoulder he turns his head toward me. “Tell me a secret.”
“I’m not telling you my name.”
“No. I’ll figure that out on my own.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure you will,” I say instead while thinking.
“Come on. One secret.”
“You first.”
He thinks for a few minutes before saying, “I almost didn’t come home after college. I almost stayed in Arizona.”
“What? Why?” He’s the original hometown boy. I can’t imagine any plan that he’d have that didn’t result in him coming home to work with his parents.
“One of my good friends lives there. We met in college, and his mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the tail end of my senior year. It was just him and her. I thought about staying to help him out. Plus the landscape out there is way different than here. It would have been more of a challenge.”
“Have you stayed in touch?”
“Kinda. He fell off the face of the earth for a few years but reached out about a year ago. We call or email about once a month.”
“And his mom?”
“She lives in a long-term care facility.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “It’s okay. Now it’s your turn.”
“Sometimes I miss home.”
“Home?”
“Idaho. I miss the wide-open fields, the way the pine trees get covered with snow. But most of all? I miss the mountains—they’re so different from the ones here.”
Home is where all of my memories are. Where I grew up. Where I went to school. Sometimes the bone-deep ache from missing the place paralyzes me. And then I remember the last six months of Gran being sick. The town busybodies always stopping in when I just wanted the quiet. The last few minutes with the one person on earth who loved me unconditionally.
Maybe it was selfish. Maybe leaving was more selfish. But I don’t regret it. Even when I miss it.
“Are you thinking about going back?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
* * *
Warrick pulls into my driveway and puts the truck in park. “Stay here. I’ll come around and open your door.”
Weirdly charmed by the manners, I wait for him to open my door. When his hand reaches for mine, I lay my palm in his and relish the spark that tingles through my fingers.
I didn’t expect to have as good of a time as I did tonight, but he surprised me. Instead of taking me to a restaurant and then trying to talk me back to his place, he took me somewhere quiet and peaceful and spent the night talking to me.
We walk in silence up to my porch, and in the dim light I turn to look at him. “Thank you for tonight. I had a good time.”
