“Mmhmm. I don’t know why, but that night I didn’t really feel like sitting outside. I had rented a movie from the video store and—”
“The video store?” he asks, interrupting me with a laugh.
I glance over at him, a smile playing at the edges of my lips. “You haven’t seen it in town?”
He shakes his head, still smiling, the laughter lingering in his eyes. “No.”
“It’s one of the last ones still open in the country.”
“This town is weird.”
“I’ve always thought so, but I haven’t really been anywhere to compare it to. Is it really that different from all the other small towns in America?”
“It’s one of a kind,” he says, voice softer than I would have expected, like Fontana Ridge has wriggled its way beneath his exterior. “Something special.”
“Mmm,” I hum. I turn back to face the storm, feeling the wind on my face, pulling at the loose pieces of my hair that have slipped free from my braid. “If I had gone outside that night like usual, the shelf that fell in the Airstream wouldn’t have hit my head.” I glance back at him to find his eyes already on me. “But then again, I wouldn’t have met you either.”
“Fate’s a bitch, huh?”
A laugh rockets out of me, and I bury my smile in my knees. He bumps his shoulder with mine, his body so much warmer than my own. I’ve probably been out here for too long; the temperature has been steadily dropping all day, and with the wind it’s chilly. But I don’t want to go inside.
“Do you miss your Airstream?” Jack asks.
I shrug, unsure how to answer. Idomiss it, but I also haven’t minded being here nearly as much as I expected to. “I miss having a place that was mine,” I tell him. “The cabin is nice, but it doesn’t feel like home.”
“Home,” he says into the night, voice tinged with something I can’t quite name. “I haven’t been anywhere that feels like home in years.”
“Do you missthat?” I ask, tipping my chin on my knees so I’m looking at him, cheek pressed into the denim.
He’s quiet for a long minute. A flash of lightning that illuminates the stubble growing on his cheeks. Two cracks of thunder. “I didn’t use to.”
“And now?”
His eyes settle on mine. “I don’t know. Maybe. I miss Montana, and I miss home,” he answers. “But they don’t necessarily feel like the same thing anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
He lets out a breath and pushes us again with feet in mismatched ankle socks. “I miss the wide open skies, the mountains, the smell of the wildflowers in spring and the horses on the ranch I worked on in high school. And I miss the little apartment I lived in with my mom and Evan. The pancakes she would make us on Sunday mornings—the only day she ever had off. How when we couldn’t sleep, she would let us climb in her bed and watchCheers. But Montana doesn’t feel like home without her anymore, you know? I miss Montana, and I miss home, but I don’t really feel like Montana is my home anymore.” He looks at me. “Does that make sense?”
His words feel like needles piercing me in all my softest places, giving shape to the thoughts that have been tumbling, formless and jumbled, in my head for years. It’s different, of course. But I feel like I’ve outgrown myself, outgrown the pieces of me that feel likeme. I’m wandering, aimless, in the same place I’ve always been, watching everyone move on without me. Fontana Ridge feels like home, but for some reason, I don’t feel likeIfit in it anymore. The Stevie-sized shape in Fontana Ridge has stayed the same, but I’ve changed.
“Yeah, it makes sense,” I manage to get out. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”
He stares out at the storm instead of looking at me, but I don’t turn away from him. The porch light casts him in a warm glow, making his hair look more golden than usual. There’s stubble on his cheeks, and for a moment I wonder what it would feel like beneath my fingers, how the scratch of it would feel on my palms.
“I should. I know I should,” he finally says. His voice is a deep scratch. “I’ve just never been able to make myself. But my brother, Evan, has a daughter now. And I’ve been missing her entire childhood. Every time she Facetimes me, I barely recognize her. She’s growing so fast, changing so much. And sometimes I wonder why I can’t just make myself go. Why seeing my niece isn’t bright enough to burn up the dark clouds that always hang over me when I get anywhere near that town.”
He turns back to me then, eyes locking with mine in the darkness. “I should just get over it, huh?”
I shake my head, and lean in until my shoulder is pressed to his, trying to give him strength, reassurance, anything to make the haunted look in his eyes disappear. “No, I don’t think you should.”
“But I should try to go back, right?”
His body is so much warmer than mine, and I’m not sure who is giving who strength now. If maybe we’re both holding each other up. “I don’t think I can answer that for you.”
“No, I don’t guess that’s fair of me,” he says. His gaze slides to mine, and his lips hitch in the tiniest of smiles. “But I know what you’re thinking.”
I lift a brow in question.
