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I knew she was there whenever I wanted to look. That was enough.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Rachel

The elevator doors close, and Locke and I are alone. For a few floors, neither of us speaks. I can still hear him saying it: I want her beside me anyway.

He’s looking straight ahead, calm as if he didn’t just say exactly the thing I’ve been trying not to want.

“So,” I say.

I had a whole sentence when I opened my mouth. It has abandoned me.

His eyes warm with amusement. “So.”

The elevator doors open. We cross the lobby and step outside, where Locke turns toward me at almost the same moment I turn toward him. For one ridiculous second, we just stand here.

“Salted caramel?” I ask.

Amusement returns immediately. “Salted caramel.”

We stop at Cherry on Top on the way back to the car. Locke orders the same thing he had yesterday, I get chocolate, and once the doors are closed behind us, the world gets quieter.

He takes a bite of the cone and looks disappointed all over again.

“Still bad?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop eating it.”

“I paid for it.”

That makes the silence afterward easier.

Mara asked Locke what he wanted, and I wasn’t the answer. Well, not the whole answer.

A week ago, I was almost his entire world because there wasn’t much world for him to have. Now there’s Ben and Tom and tools and work he hasn’t found yet. Money he wants to earn. Books he wants to read. Places he wants to go without me beside him explaining what everything is.

He wants a life.

And he wants me in it.

I finish my ice cream before it melts over my fingers, start the car, and pull away from the curb.

We don’t talk much on the drive home. We don’t need to. The interview no longer feels like something sitting between us, waiting to be discussed. Locke lets the scenery pass outside his window while I follow roads I’ve known for years and try not to keep replaying six words in his voice. I want her beside me anyway.

Locke shifts beside me. “How do you spell flamingo?”

I glance over. “Flamingo?”

“Yes.”

I slow for the turn into my drive. “F-L-A-M-I-N-G-O.”

He takes out his phone and opens the search screen. His thumb hovers over the keyboard while he works through the letters one at a time.

“What brought this on?”