“Life shouldn’t be about tiny little breaks where you find happiness. The happy part should be the whole thing—or at least the vast majority of it. Trust me, I learned that the hard way.”
I snorted, thinking about where her life had almost landed her before she wound up here—the happiest I’d ever seen her. I remembered thinking when she was with her douchey ex, living so close to where we’d grown up, that there was so much more for her. I’d tried gently nudging her in different directions, but she’d always insisted she was happy. Was that whatwas happening now? Could Mattie see my life better than I could? Did she have that sisterly intuition that was screaming at her that I was making some sort of mistake?
I attempted to shake the doubt from my mind. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I want this job, Mattie. I’m so close to finally landing something, and I’m going to see it through.”
Mattie smiled, but the light didn’t touch her eyes. “Then I can’t wait to celebrate when you finally land it.”
Her words didn’t help the pit that had formed in my stomach. It wasn’t lost on me that all I wanted in that moment was to call Oliver, fall into his arms, and let him hold me until I felt whole again.
I was in dangerous territory.
Oliver was like this beautiful mountain lake that I’d seen while driving. I’d pulled over to take a quick dip. Except that dip was a little too luxurious and now I couldn’t quite imagine getting out and back into my car.
Was it nice? Sure.
But the reality was, I was going to get pulled under if I stayed in for too long. I would drown in how good it felt and never resurface again.
I had to do something about this. Putting any distance between the two of us felt impossible, but since I needed to let him go eventually, I might as well start peeling away now.
TWENTY-FOUR
Oliver
“Here’s a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad—”I continued to rummage through the bins of camping equipment that Bev had given me from her garage. She’d said we were welcome to any of it. I already had my own gear, but Frankie had nothing, and neither did Harrison or Lila, who were arriving later today.
“What about a tent?” Frankie asked. She was lounging on the loveseat in the living room corner of my small studio. I’d been trying to build up her excitement for this camping trip for days, but she still wasn’t fully convinced.
I, on the other hand, was pumped. I wanted nothing more than to be out in nature with her, sitting by a bonfire with our friends, not thinking at all about what was next and just being with each other. There would be no cell reception so she’d finally be forced to take a break from preparing for interviews for this supposed dream job of hers. If you asked me, it was freaking ridiculous to put a potential candidate through this many hoops just to decide if you wanted to hire them or not.Frankie had already killed three rounds of interviews; they should have known what they had by now.
“My tent is pretty small, but we should both be able to squeeze into it.” I grinned up at her, but it faltered when I found her frowning back at me. “What?” I questioned.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said. “I mean, your best friend and his girlfriend are coming up. I would totally get if you didn’t want to say that we’re together—or whatever it is that we are. It’s so confusing, and they’re only here for a few days.”
My smile remained frozen to my face, but I could feel the vein in my neck start to bulge. “Frankie, you’re overthinking this,” I said carefully, because like hell was I letting her sleep anywhere except for my tent. She’d be lucky if I didn’t squeeze her into my sleeping bag.
“It’s confusing,” she insisted.
I stood up slowly, dropping my smile and raising an eyebrow. “Confusing? What are you talking about? No, it’s not.”
I mean, I guess it kind of was. I was confused as hell. I’d never felt this way in my entire life, yet we were only temporary. Everything in me was screaming to fight for whatever this was, but every logical thing in my brain was telling me we weren’t meant to be. Actually, come to think of it, “confusing” about summed it up.
“Look,” she said in a gentle tone I kind of hated—like she was bracing to let me down or something. “There will be a group of us. It’s not like it’s some romantic getaway, just the two of us. We can keep it casual in front of your friends. Mattie and Giles have an extra tent I can borrow. I’ll just use that one. It isn’t a big deal.”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but she shuffled off the couch and cut me off.
“I don’t want to have to explain myself to your friends, okay?” She let out an exhausted-sounding sigh, and I fought the urge to pull her into me. “They’ll ask questions that I don’t feel like answering. I’d rather get to know them in a chill environment—without any pressure.”
If she knew Harrison, she would know that he’d be as likely to interrogate her as a monk that took a vow of silence. He was not the chatty type, nor would he ever stick his nose in anyone’s business.
I didn’t say that, though. Something felt off about today. In fact, something had felt off for the past couple of days. She’d made a few excuses not to hang out. I knew she was stressed about getting this job, but I also knew how fucking prepared she was. There was no way she needed as much alone time as she’d insisted on, but I wasn’t about to call her out on that. I didn’t beg people to spend time with me, and I wasn’t about to start now.
“Okay, we’ll play it by ear.” I gave my best noncommittal answer.
I wouldn’t push her on it right now, but I would figure something out. She’d be in my tent tonight, that was for damn sure. And this weird energy she’d been giving me this week? Yeah, that needed to go right the hell away. I only had a limited time left with her, and I wanted it to be amazing. Not stifled and awkward.
I went to her and bent down to place a kiss on the top of her head. “Harrison and Lila will be here any minute. We were going to grab lunch and pack up the car. Do you want to stay here or should we pick you up?—”
“I’ll drive up with Mattie and Giles,” she said, waving her hand as if it were no big deal. As if she wasn’t painfully, achingly slicing my chest open with a dull butterknife. “See you up there,” she said cheerfully, taking the sleeping bag andheadlamp I’d set aside for her. She gathered them up in her arms so that I could barely see her face over the gear.
