Lydia:
Tomorrow at 2pm from Billings.
Me:
Don't leave without seeing me first.
A long pause.Long enough that my heart stops beating.
Lydia:
I won't.
I set the phone down and go inside.I've got eight hours to figure out how to be the man she deserves.
I'm going to need every one of them.
CHAPTEREIGHT
LYDIA
Idon't sleep.
I lie in Room 12 at the Mountain Haven Inn with Scout pressed against my side and my suitcase half packed on the floor and I stare at the ceiling and count every crack in the plaster because counting cracks is better than counting the reasons I should have protected my heart.
His text sits on my phone like a lit fuse.
Stephen:
Don't leave without seeing me first.
Don't leave without seeing me first.Not I love you.Not please stay.Not I'm sorry I said I need time when the woman in front of me was handing me everything I've ever wanted and all I had to do was take it.
Don't leave without seeing me first.
Like I'm a piece of equipment he forgot to return before the consultation ended.
That's not fair.I know it's not fair.I know Stephen Nelson well enough after two weeks to understand that the man who pushed me away in a dog kennel yesterday did it because he's terrified, not because he doesn't care.He loves me.I saw it in his face every morning when he handed me coffee.I felt it in his hands every night in his bed.I heard it in the way he said my name, low and rough, like the word itself was something precious he was trying to hold without crushing.
He loves me and he's afraid to say it because the last time he loved someone enough to fight the water for them, two people drowned.
Scout lifts her head at five-thirty when the first gray light seeps through the curtains.I drag myself to the shower.Stand under the hot water with my forehead against the tile and let myself feel all of it.The loss.The anger.The desperate, clawing hope that his text means something more than goodbye.
I get dressed.Jeans.My own shirt this time, because his flannel is hanging in his cabin and I don't have access to the armor I've been wearing against my skin for two weeks.I braid my hair.Feed Scout from the travel bag.
My phone buzzes at six-fifteen.
Stephen:
I'm at the trailhead by the old ranger station.Bring Scout.
Not the cabin.The trailhead.I frown at the screen.
Me:
I have a flight at 2.
Stephen:
