Page 79 of Where Roads Lead

“It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, Will. A simple musing, if you will.” She waved a hand dramatically in the air. “Gosh, isn’t a girl allowed to ponder in this town?”

“You’re really something, you know that?”

“Thanks.” She grinned.

“I didn’t say it was a good something.”

“I’d rather be something than nothing.”

“Hold on,” I narrowed my eyes, “my brain is trying to figure out if that makes sense or not.”

She laughed, and I got to my feet, feeling the strangest regret that the night had come to a close so quickly.

Elsie was easy to be around. She was funny and a little chaotic in a way that kept me on my toes. And she made me forget about all the shit I had piling up at all times.

I guess she took up more than enough headspace on her own, it didn’t leave room for much else.

She started to stand herself, until I saw before my eyes as a thought struck her and she plummeted back into the chair, opening her laptop back up with frantic energy.

“Wait, I’m so sorry, but I just thought of something else to write.” She looked at me, a silent plea in her wide green eyes.

“Something else? After an hour of writing, you still have more to say?”

Unsurprising. Elsie never ran out of things to say, or think, or do. Her mind was more active than anyone else’s I had ever met.

“What can I say? The ambience of your café really sets the playground of imagination ablaze.”

I shook my head at her, forcing myself to keep the smile threatening to escape under lock and key.

“Then, by all means, write away.”

I set my head down on the table, closing my eyes for just a minute.

I didn’t know how I’d ended up feeling so at ease in a dark café at eleven o’clock at night, with a relative stranger sitting across from me and a thousand things waiting for me in the morning.

I only knew that I was.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Elsie

Iknew it was morning before I opened my eyes because my mouth was dry and my body felt sore and uncomfortable the way it sometimes did when I fell asleep writing on the floor.

My brain wasn’t alert enough to process why I wasn’t snuggled up under my quilt, resting soundly in my bed, but the morning light streaming in let me know that wherever I was, I hadn’t shut the curtains either.

I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes to investigate the situation further, so all I could manage was a pathetic groan.

“Elsie?”

Will?

Yup, that had my eyes snapping wide open.

“Oh my God,” I screeched, “did we fall asleep?”

By the way he rubbed his eyes, I could tell that if he’d woken up before me, it was only be mere moments.

“That’s kind of a stupid question,” he said, running a hand over his face. “Considering it’s morning.”