“Oh, no. Don’t think that. I enjoyed it. I just thought it was the way we were. I got so used to traveling, I just continued with it, and assumed I’d be restless and wouldn’t be happy in one spot.”
“It was never about not being happy,” her dad said. “We just didn’t want to pass on any opportunities and risk never getting them again.”
As if this unlocked something she had pushed away, memories of her childhood flooded back to her of times she heard her parents talking about buying a house in Texas and settling down. But then they’d be off on the next adventure, and she’d forget all about it.
“Why do you still move?” Jessa asked.
“We created a habit at this point. And we don’t really have anywhere to settle down. We thought we would wait until you picked a place to live and then we would follow,” her mom said.
Jessa let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. It was like she had been punched and all the air had expelled from her lungs. She had no idea they were waiting for her.
“You were waiting for me?”
“Yes, but we didn’t want to force you to decide, so we’ve just been traveling until then.”
“I didn’t know.”
“We know,” her dad said. “We wanted you to make your own decisions and never wanted to add pressure. We still don’t. Butif you think you’re in love with this guy, don’t pass that up just because you think you need to travel because that’s what you know. It’s okay to take risks and give love a chance. To stay in one place.”
Give love a chance.She squeezed her eyes shut and Noah’s face flashed through her mind.Love.
Jessa sighedand laid her head on the conference room table of the building she was in. She had just laid off her fifth employee, and she was drained. Megan was in the conference room beside hers, doing the same thing.
This part of the job was the only part she hated. Seeing the disappointment on the employee’s face was hard. She tried to soften the blow by showing them their severance package. She had to hand it to Brian. The severance packages were good. They always did well to take care of their employees, so closing down this entire building was a shock. They had never laid off to this extent before.
Megan popped her head into the conference room. “I need to get out of here for a bit. Let’s get lunch.”
Jessa sat up and nodded, grabbing her coat and purse before following Megan out of the room. Word had already traveled through the building with what was happening, so the stares they got from the employees who had yet to be spoken to wanted to make Jessa cower.
This sucked. She was supposed to be in Wintervale enjoying life. She was supposed to be doing her job remotely and spending her evenings with Noah.
God, she missed him. It had only been a little over twenty-four hours since they had left, and she was already wishing she could see him again. That hadneverhappened to her. Shedidn’t miss people. That just wasn’t who she was. She also never missed places. But she missed Wintervale a whole hell of a lot.
In that short week, she had felt more at home than anywhere else. The town, the people, the general energy. All of it. It made her feel like she was at home.
Megan and Jessa stepped into a restaurant down the street from the office building. Once they were seated, Jessa closed her eyes, imagining they were sitting around the bar with Noah and Jackson, enjoying nachos and beer.
“You miss him, huh?”
Jessa opened her eyes and sighed. “More than I ever thought possible. It’s weird, isn’t it? That I could miss a man I only met a week ago? That’s too soon.”
Megan shrugged. “Not when you’re in love.”
Love. She was in love. “Am I crazy?”
Megan reached across the table and took Jessa’s hand in hers.
“Honey, I think you’d be crazynotto feel the way you do.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Have you been able to get ahold of him?”
Jessa shook her head. When they were traveling, her phone died from obsessively checking it and mindlessly scrolling on social media in the airport to kill time. And she realized her charger was in her checked bag. By the time she got to her hotel room that night and could charge her phone, it was late. She didn’t want to wake Noah since she knew he would be asleep, so she waited. When she tried calling this morning, it went straight to voicemail.
The server came over at that moment to take their orders. Jessa hadn’t checked out the menu yet, so she ordered the same as Megan. When he walked away, Megan smiled at Jessa.
“Why don’t you try calling him again?”
