Page 125 of Pick Me This Time

59

STERLING

Isat at the gate waiting for my flight, the events of the last few weeks playing on an endless loop through my mind. Every fiber of my being rebelled against the thought of boarding that plane and the more I thought about home, the more convinced I was that I shouldn’t be leaving.

But I have to, or do I?

I’d spent half my life to get to where I was. But the real question is whether I want to spend the rest of it in the place I got to.

As the question echoed from the deepest recesses of my mind, I frowned. The truth was that regardless of how hard I’d worked, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working sixteen-hour days in Manhattan.

I wanted to spend them on the farm, helping my dad and going home to Daphne at night. I wanted to be there when the farm became everything it could be again, and I wanted to have been part of making it happen instead of just being the money behind the transformation.

More than that, I didn’t want to do this thing with Daphne from over four hundred miles away. I didn’t want to spend a weekend with her every couple months when I could get away and only see her for a few days over the holidays.

I wanted to decorate the house with her for said holidays. I wanted to spend the entire weekend, every weekend with her, doing whatever it was happy couples did with their time off. On the other hand, farmers didn’t get weekends off, but even that didn’t matter to me.

“Something the matter, son?” an elderly man in the first-class waiting area asked, his voice kind and gentle.

When I looked up, I found him and his wife staring at me from the other side of the little coffee table. Their eyes were kind, interest splashed across their faces. I tried to force a smile, but it didn’t work.

“Why am I on this flight if the girl I love is in Vermont?” I asked, not really sure why I was explaining my dilemma to these folks, but I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing here anymore.

The older man frowned at me, his hair silver and his skin wrinkled and wispy, like it might split if he moved too fast. He reached for his wife’s hand, both of their golden wedding bands looking like they’d grown onto their fingers, which meant they’d been married for a long time.

Probably the right kind of people to ask for this advice.

“Why are you on this flight if the girl you love is in Vermont?” he repeated the question slowly, his bushy white eyebrows rising. “I don’t know, son, but you shouldn’t be.”

“I’m starting to think that too,” I said miserably. Sighing, I shook my head. “It felt like I had to, but do I?”

“No,” the woman said easily, her kind eyes fixed on my own. “What is your gut telling you?”

“That leaving is wrong.” I didn’t even have to think about it. “That I should get my ass back to Allisburg and tell her that I’m staying.”

“Then that’s what you should do,” she said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “Do you really love her?”

“Yes.” I didn’t have to think about that either. “I’ve known her for most of my life, but she’s my best friend’s sister, so I spent most of that time ignoring her existence. Things have changed now, though. I’ve never felt this way before.”

“You definitely shouldn’t be here, son,” the man said, jerking his head at the exit. “Go to her. If you don’t, you’ll regret it forever.”

“You think?”

He sniffed, glancing at his wife before he nodded at me, his expression suddenly a little grave. “I don’t think, I know. Love doesn’t come around every day, and if you ignore it when the time is right, you might never get a second bite at the apple.”

My teeth sank into my lip. “We’re going to try long distance. It could work. Maybe I’ve just been here too long. Maybe all this indecisiveness will melt away when we land in New York.”

The older woman tilted her head, a thoughtful look in her eyes as she ran them over me. “You don’t seem like the indecisive type.”

“I’m not. Not usually, anyway. Lately though, I don’t seem to know anything for sure.”

Her eyes widened. “You seem rather confident that you love this girl.”

“Well, yeah. I do. I love her more than anything.” Wholeheartedly. Without reservation. “Okay, so that’s one thing I know for sure.”

The man chuckled. “The indecisiveness isn’t going to melt away when we land, son.”

My nose wrinkled. “Why not? It could.”