The breeze feels incredible.
The river murmurs nearby.
And for the first time all week, I feel my shoulders completely relax.
“You never answered my question,” she says.
“Question?”
She looks over at me. “Cabe?”
“Oh, right. Cabe and I are just Cabe and me,” I say with a shrug.
“So, you’re dating? Not dating?”
“We’re friends for now,” I say.
“Friends. Like friends with benefits?”
I laugh. “Like friends. No benefits.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Well, boo. That’s no fun. Why not?”
I let out a sigh. “I don’t know. It just seems like it would complicate things come fall, when I have to head back to Colorado.”
Harleigh closes her eyes. “Some complications are worth the trouble.”
“You think so?”
One eye pops open and focuses on me. “Oh, yeah. Porter and I started out as a complication.”
Porter Garrison is the general manager of The Belicort Resort Hotel, owned by his family. Harleigh worked as an event manager at the hotel after graduating from the University of Wyoming. Apparently, the two of them had a heated office affair that turned into love. Cabe told me all about it.
“That’s different,” I say.
“How so?”
“Well, for one thing, you two live in the same town.”
“Eh, that’s just geography,” she says.
I roll onto my stomach and rest on my elbows. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” I confess.
“But you two have been a couple already,” she says.
“I know. But we were young, and it was easier then. Now, there are so many things in the way. Logistics is just one of them, but it’s more than that. His life is here, and I want to travel, at least for a few years, and I don’t want him sitting around, waiting for me. I’m afraid he’d end up resenting me. I love him too much for that to happen.”
“Love. But not in love,” she says.
“How do you know the difference?” I ask.
She chuckles. “You just know.”
I pick at a clover at the edge of the blanket. “Maybe it’ll be that one day.”
“Maybe,” she repeats.
She closes her eyes, and for a while, we simply enjoy the peace—the sunshine and water.
