“I went to see my mom,” he tells me, and my heart clenches painfully in my chest, a longing to comfort him so deep that it physically aches.
“How was it?” I ask.
He sighs, and I can imagine him pushing a hand through his messy hair, the only thing about him that’s never tidy. “It was really hard, but it was also…nice? To feel close to her again. To talk to her again.”
“That makes sense,” I say, softly.
“I’ve been running for so long,” he says on another exhalation. “Avoiding staying anywhere too long so I don’t get attached. So I don’t give anyone an opportunity to hurt me again.”
My throat hurts and my chest throbs. I want him to be here so I can tell him that he’s only been trying to protect himself, that he’s done the best he could. I want to touch him and hold him and make him feel like everything will be okay.
“I don’t want to run anymore, Stevie.”
His words hang in the air, more an exhausted plea than anything else.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says, then stops. I can hear him swallow, and I do too. It feels like something is changing, a cosmic shift in the universe. Stars being placed in the night sky by gods. “I started looking for a job near Fontana Ridge. What would you think if I was there? Permanently.”
My mind whirs, and for a moment I think I haven’t heard him right. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. Jack Sullivan, who hasn’t stayed in one place for more than a handful of months, wants to movehere. To Fontana Ridge.
“Why?” The word pulls out of me. I need to know the answer. I need to know if he fell in love with the mountains and the town and the lake. Or with something else. Withsomeoneelse.
“Stevie,” he breathes, and it’s almost like he’s here, saying my name in my skin. It makes my shiver. “I want…”
He stops himself, and it’s silent for one heartbeat. Two.
Until I can’t take it anymore.
“What do you want, Jack?”
“You.”
My world stops. Then starts again.
“I want to try with you. I want to be near you and with you. You’re the first person to ever make me want to stay, Stevie. It scares me to think about it, but I want to stay for you. I want to be someone you can count on. Someone who will cook you dinner and make sure you’re not running yourself ragged taking care of everyone else.” His voice is frayed. “I want you, Stevie. I want a life with you. If you’ll have me.”
My heart beats in overdrive, pounding in my throat and in my ears. What he’s saying sounds sogood, but something also feels off. Claustrophobic in a way I can’t quite describe. I know that I want him, more than anything, but I don’t want him likethis.
“Jack,” I croak. “You can’t come here for me.”
He’s silent for so long I think he’s hung up, but when I check the screen again, I see the timer still running.
“I’m not…I won’t be enough. This town will be too small for you. You’ll plant roots and grow stagnant and resent me for it. This isn’t the life you want.”
“You don’t know that.” He sounds as wrecked as I feel.
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. The Christmas music playing in the background is something soft, romantic, and it makes me want to scream. My skin is too tight, my body singing with an electric current.
“You don’t know that you won’t.”
“Stevie,” he says, and his voice is gentle but still rough. “We can’t know the future. I didn’t know when I left for college that my mom would die before I graduated. I didn’t know I’d spend the next decade avoiding my hometown and hardly seeing mybrother. I didn’t know I’d choose a random destination for my next contract and fall in—”
“Don’t say it,” I plead.
“I love you, Stevie. Please, let me love you.”
And that is my kryptonite. Jack thinks I’m selfless, that I always put everyone before myself, but he’s wrong. Because faced withthat, with his declaration of love, I can’t let it go. I can’t lethimgo. It’s selfish to let him come here, when I know this place can’t make him happy, but I’ll do it. Because Jack Sullivan loves me.
I don’t sleep, and neither does Jack. We stay on the phone, talking until the wee hours of the morning. He looks at jobs near Fontana Ridge and reads me the descriptions. None of them are exactly what he’s looking for, but he applies for them anyway.
