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My chest went tight at the gruff, terse way he said it. Half the battle of being friends with this man was knowing when to push and when to back off. Given it was day two, I decided to go with the latter. I gave him a small smile, and his chest expanded on a deep breath when he realized I wasn’t going to pry.
“How’s it going at your parents’?” he asked.
The immediate slump of my shoulders must’ve given me away because he laughed—a low, rough, eardrum-tickling laugh that came from deep in his chest.
“That good?” he asked.
I propped my chin on my hands and sighed. “I wanted it to go well, Ian. I swear. I’ve been gone for so long, I thought maybe my parents and I would be able to coexist because I was finally coming home, and they finally have Sage here all the time like they wanted.” I covered my face briefly because holy shit it was a relief to finally be able to admit some of this out loud. “Coming home was the right thing to do, and I know that. But they see life so differently than I do. They cannot understand why I keep writing as a job when it’s so fickle, so hard to predict.” I dropped my hands. “To them, that’s the height of being an irresponsible parent.”
The quiet way he watched me unload my feelings was like shooting back in a time machine. It was one of the things he did so well, and apparently, still did.
“You keep trying because it’s what you’re meant to do, and you love it.”
My shoulders dropped another inch. “That simple, huh?”
“Yes.” His tone was stern, but his face was soft, a word most people would never, ever use to describe him. “So they still don’t support you, even after all these years.”
“They are letting me stay at their house for free,” I said carefully. “That’s a form of support.” I thought about my mom’s comment from earlier. Honest, hard work. Like I didn’t have any clue what that meant. “Though, I don’t know how long that will last. They want me to get a job. And I might,” I conceded. “If I can’t get something started. My publisher is pretty much out of patience.”
Ian’s hands were clasped together when he leaned forward, setting them on the table between us. It was almost impossible to hold his unwavering eye contact because I knew he was about to ask me something I didn’t want to answer.
“What do you need, Harlow?”
Something about his easily asked question, smooth and deep and unthinking, had a nervous tickling erupting in my belly. So naturally, I deflected like a champ. “Like, in general or right at this moment? Very different answers.”
One side of his lips hooked up. “To write. What do you need?”
I knew the answer, but I didn’t really want to say it because I knew this man. Knew him despite the time and distance. He’d do whatever he could to help me because if a single person had proven his desire to make my life better, it was Ian Wilder.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly.
He tilted his head. “Bullshit. You know what you need. You just don’t want to tell me.”
I leaned forward. “Don’t you think it’s weird that I haven’t seen you in forever, and you’re sitting here trying to pry my innermost thoughts out? Because this can’t be normal. This should be awkward, you know? Seventeen years of not seeing you should mean a transition period of small talk and catching up and talking about the weather, at least for a few days.”
Ian leaned back in the booth and spread one arm across the back of the bench, much like he’d been sitting on his couch the night before. “I’m not overthinking it like you are.”
“Clearly.”
“What do you need?” he said again, the slight edge of demand to his voice.
The last year had drained me so much more than I realized, and maybe it was as simple as someone I trusted asking me a really straightforward question. In the necessity to keep moving forward, I didn’t usually stop and dwell on what made all these decisions of mine so hard. But swallowing your pride after months of not feeling like you could do your job anymore had exhaustion stamped down to my marrow. It felt an awful lot like conceding to a battle, even if I was the only one fighting it.
No one had warned me about how your soul deflated when you couldn’t find the words you needed. No one warned me that coming back home and trying to keep my chin up was the most debilitating sort of humility. And no one had asked me something this simple.
What did I need to write?
“I need something to inspire me. I need space and quiet, and I need someone to metaphorically hold my hand and tell me I can still do this, even when it’s hard.”
Dammit, my voice got all wobbly at the end, and the bridge of my nose tingled ominously.
Ian nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Once the unexpected wave of emotion had passed, I took a deep breath and straightened in the booth. “Okay, what?”
“I have an idea. You’re going to say no at first, but eventually, you’ll admit that I’m right.”
“Gawd, no wonder you’re single. That’s your best approach when asking a woman to do something?”
