Page 105 of Fall Love

After we hang up, I continue to stare at the firehouse, feeling like another blip of hope has popped. Evaporated into the air.

Then, it starts to rain, and I still. I stare out the side window, never having felt so hopeless in my life.

When a horn honks beside me, I flinch and turn toward the other vehicle. I roll down the window with the ease of automation, compared to the hand crank in the Bronco, and face Fisk in the driver’s seat of an official Master Baiter’s pickup truck.

“I thought that was you,” Fisk says, his voice rugged and cheerful.

“Hey.” My attempts to muster any joy falls flat.

“Heard about you and Tate,” his voice still too peppy.

“Oh?”

“Congratulations on the partnership.”

With my hands on the top of the steering wheel, I sag into it.

The partnership. Tate was up for a promotion to partner, and he told me he wasn’t taking it. I told him I didn’t want him to not take it. I didn’t want to be the reason he gave up something he worked so hard to achieve.

And apparently, Tate must have taken the partnership after all. Step one in his departure from Lovewell Landing.

“Yeah.” My voice is still lifeless.

Fisk’s thick brows crease. “You okay, honey?”

I’m reminded of Roz and her overzealous enthusiasm about Tate and me, and Wren, and then her tone dropping, concern dominant in her voice, just like Fisk’s.

“I’m good,” I lie, then squint toward the windshield. “I need to get home,” I say, hitching my thumb toward the back seat where Wren is sleeping again.

Fisk gives me a casual wave, ending our chat. I salute him back, then roll up my window.

The rain comes harder. The weather certainly matches my mood.

When it rains, it pours.

CHAPTER 38

[Tate]

The rain is more like a deluge. I can’t see out the windshield as I sit in my car waiting on Neve. She wasn’t at the house when I got there, so I called Lumi, who told me Neve was going home.

To her house.

Last night, I would have been on a late-night flight back to Maine if there had been one. I tried to find an early-morning flight, then said fuck it. I drove, instead.

I wanted my car here anyway.

And eight hours didn’t move fast enough.

After Neve’s phone call, I did what I intended to do in New York and got out of there, because Neve’s call was exactly what I’d feared would happen. She’d find out about Bucky Beaver and hate me.

She was right. I should have told her, but the closer we got, the harder it was to spill the truth.

There was no future auto-body shop. No potential job. A hotel was going up on the property.

I knew she’d be crushed. She wouldn’t see the bigger picture. The Snowe sisters had no choice but to sell. They had nothing to bargain with. But rational thought over sentimentality was difficult, and it was something I loved about my feisty auto mechanic.

Neve was devoted to the core.