“Aw, that’s sweet,” someone said.
“What?” another older man yelled.
“But I need to say something,” Pace said slightly louder, holding out his arms.
“Speak up!” the old man shouted again.
Pace’s mouth went into a flat line. He shook out his hands. He looked like I’d never seen him.Terrified. No smile, colorless cheeks.
“Pace. It’s okay, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I am doing this for you, but I’m also doing it for myself.”
“No. I know.” He shook his head. “I want to expose myself to you?—”
“I thought that’s what I was doing ...” My eyebrows reached up my forehead. “It does seem to be one of your favorite things to do.”
“No.” He huffed out a nervous laugh and then groaned and smiled at me like he was annoyed that I had made him laugh while being nervous. “Listen, I have bad news. The list isn’t done.”
“Oh.” My confusion was written all over my face. I thought back to every item we’d crossed off together, wondering which item he cried foul on. Did he think, like I had, that finishing these completely arbitrary activities would somehow fix me?
Worse yet, did he still believe something about me needed fixing?
“The listisimportant. You do need to finish it.”
I blinked at him. Worried that my heart, which had already borne so much pain, might fracture permanently this time.
“What? What did we forget?” I asked.
33
Pace
Dark clouds gathered strength.It was the kind of sky that warned snow was coming to settle in the valley of the town for a long night. The first small flakes fluttered in the air around us. The sky and horizon blended into a mass of gray and white.
I was screwing this all up. Everything I said made Sophie’s shoulders curl in more protectively, made her features more hesitant. This was not how this was meant to go. I was meant to be showing her that I could be the brave one for once.
Sophie had missed me. She’d called us awewhen referring to the list and said she protected people she loved. And she was here, naked—really needed to fact-check that—and being the brave one, once again.
Because I still hadn’t said anything to fix what I’d screwed up.
“The list. There are more items,” I said and pulled a piece of paper from my pocket. I hunched over to protect it from the lightly falling snow.
Sophie grabbed the list and brought it closer. Her eyes moved rapidly across the page as she read the items I’d added while I was in the gallery with Levi. Her mouth chattered as her brows furrowed with concentration.
“Pace, what is this?” She looked up at me.
“It’s your list. Things that you have to do still.” I felt the cold seeping into me now too. Or nerves. A trembling started in my shoulders, and the pain in my chest was greater than ever.
“See the Grand Canyon?”
I nodded, fighting off trembling. There were, to be fair, a lot of questionable items on that list, but that was one of the safer ones to bring up in public.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been to Arizona. I’m pretty much an expert. You’ll need me to guide you,” I explained.
An understanding slowly dawned on her features. She glanced back down at the list. “Meet the royal family?” She sucked in her lips to keep from smiling.
“They’re notoriously hard to get in touch with. But I could make it happen.”
She nodded slowly, a smile growing on her face. “You know, I’m looking at this, and I don’t really know how I will be able to do any of this on my own. I mean, logistics alone.”
