"Astrid."
"The truth is, I'm not in a place for anything serious. Not after Brett. I haven't been since I got back. I let myself get further into this than I had any business getting because you were across the street, and you were kind to me, and you made me coffee every day. That was on me. I should have said so a long time ago."
I closed my eyes. I closed them for a count of three.
When I opened them, she was still there. Her hand was still on my shirt. Her face had the wet shine along the bottom of the lashes I'd seen on it on the floor of her front hall the night Brett came to her porch, and I'd seen on it at the town hall the night Caldwell put his hand on top of hers, and I was the only man tonight who had seen it on her.
"Astrid."
"Easton."
"You don't mean both of those."
"I do."
"You don't, Astrid. One of 'em is the truth. The other one is the door you brought to close it with."
She let a small breath out.
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe that's right. It doesn't matter which one. Either one is enough."
She took her hand off my chest.
She stepped back.
"Drive me home."
I drove her home.
The truck was quiet. The dog was in the back. The road. Her cheek against the window on the drive over, same window, different drive.
I had one hand on the wheel.
She didn't put hers on mine.
I pulled into her driveway.
She got out. She stopped at her front door. She didn't turn back. She went in.
The deadbolt slid.
I sat in her driveway for a count I did not track. Then I pulled across Maple and sat in my own driveway with the engine off and her towel folded on the passenger seat where she'd set it down before she got out.
She'd told me she loved me. She'd told me to take the slot. She'd told me she wasn't ready. She'd handed me three doors. She meant the love. She meant the take-it. She meant the not-ready. The cruelest thing was that I couldn't push against any one of them without overriding her on the other two.
She built it because she loved me.
She used Brett to make sure it locked.
I was going to take the slot.
Not because I wanted it.
Because she asked me to.
CHAPTER 20
Astrid
