Page 39 of Westward

“I don’t know if I have the lung capacity for that,” Jacob joked, though I wasn’t quite sure if he was actually kidding.

“We’ll take care of you,” Callum said as he squeezed Jacob’s shoulder.

I rolled my eyes but racked my weights. Apparently, we were going on a hike. My phone buzzed, and I looked down, noticing it was a text from Lizzie that I would have to check later. There was no use looking now, because my brother would get far too interested. He already growled when I spent too much time with Lizzie, not for my sake, but for hers. And I was grateful that somebody was watching out for her, but it didn’t make me feel any better that I was the one they were careful of.

“I should shower.”

“You’re not going to shower before you get sweaty on the hike. Grab some water, and we’re stealing a backpack.”

I glared at my brother. “You’re the older brother, aren’t I supposed to steal from you?”

“I am the local barkeep. You’re the fancy ice dancer.”

“Hey, ice dancing is hard. Have you seen the Twizzles?” I asked, not joking.

“That is true. I remember both of us trying out on a dare and falling flat on our faces.”

“Toe pick!” Rune and I both said at the same time, and Jacob and Will just stared at each other.

“Are they always like this?” Will asked.

“I have no idea, but I’m a little scared,” Jacob said with a laugh.

That’s when it hit me. Will and Jacob were near the same age. Well, hell, I was the old man here. Not as old as Rune, but close enough.

With a sigh, I gathered my things and walked into the house so Rune could steal snacks and a backpack. Because a hike is something we now did.

But I didn’t mind, because I had dinner to think about when I got home. With a certain woman that I couldn’t help but crave.

Oh yes, this was going to be a problem.

Chapter 9

ELIZABETH

“What am I doing?” I stared at myself in the mirror and wondered if I was losing my mind. Well, I was. There was no denying that. Here I was, in my thirties, single, and about to have dinner with my ex.

It was odd because most days, I didn’t think of Atlas Carter. Yes, it was a near-constant theme in this town and within my thoughts, but technically, I thought of him as just Atlas.

There was before-Atlas, and then after. The moments with him felt as if I were a different person.

Even now, I was a completely different person than I had been when we had been together. And it wasn’t just growing up or letting time pass. In this moment, however, it wasn’t any of those things. I didn’t know how we had gone from texting to casually having dinner. It wasn’t as if I had known this was coming. Whatever this was. Atlas and I had fallen into this pattern, and I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to get out of it. If he even wanted to.

I had no idea what I wanted, so that wasn’t even an issue.

I leaned forward and touched my fingers to the glass, knowing I’d have to clean that later. I wasn’t seventeen and blushing and worried about what was to come.

I had the beginnings of laugh lines, far more freckles than I had when I was younger, and everything was just at the point where I knew sagging was coming for me.

And honestly, I didn’t care about any of that. It had never bothered me. Aging was a blessing. I knew that firsthand, considering I was still grieving with every ache of my soul and body. My parents were gone, and they’d had decades together.

Why did I feel like I was running out of time and yet facing the abyss of timelessness?

“What are you doing, Elizabeth?” I asked myself out loud.

What I was doing was being purposefully late to Atlas’s house because I was scared.

There. I put it out there for everybody to know. I was scared of what it meant to want him. And I was afraid of what it meant to not have him.