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But because my family is here. Everyone I love is here. Time is precious, and I lost six years with them. I don’t want to lose anymore.
That’s what’s important to me. Not a job. Not money.
Just love.
All kinds, and October said not to stay for her—and while I know she’ll always be a part of the reason—she isn’t the only reason. So I’ll reassure her, and maybe she’ll accept that.
Stand up.
Stand up.
I force myself on my feet, and I check my phone. Fuck, it’s still dead. Figures. I didn’t really want to look for flights, so I wasn’t in a hurry to charge the thing.
Ready to go, I unlock Brian’s catamaran from the inside, and I stop on the bridgedeck and notice something pink on the cockpit chair.
A muffin from Harbor Perk is wrapped in a folded napkin and sits on top of a note. My heart flutters, and I pick up the pastry and read the note that’s typed.
I love you more than possible, Zoey. Meet me at the Edge of the World before you go. Please. – OB
Does she want to talk? I reread the note. The typed font seems strange, but October always signed her notes with a dash and then her initials. And she included a pastry.
What if she’s changed her mind about turning herself in?
What if she wants to run away together?
What if she wants to live with me in Chicago?
Or we could live together in Mistpoint Harbor. All the possibilities of a future with October flood me, and hope surges. I’m about to call her, but I click at a dead screen.
“Fuck it,” I say to myself. “I’m going to the Edge of the World.” I don’t have a car, but I race back into the catamaran and snatch Brian’s keys out of a drawer.
Hurrying off the dock and into the parking lot, I find a moped parked in its usual spot. Yeah, I’m stealing my dad’s moped. Guess he’ll just have to ground me later.
And I ride off towards the woods.
The cliffside woods are dense. Fog skates along the muddy ground, and light rain mists the air. I have trouble making sense of where the hell I’m going. “October?!” I call out and glance at my black-screened phone.
I really regret not charging it last night.
I do not regret the sex, though.
That was epic.
Taking a big bite of the muffin, I continue my journey through the Edge of the World. Is that a campsite? No tents. No people. Just ashy firepits. Primitive camping.
October’s white fur coat warms my arms now, but it isn’t sensible with the light rain. Touching the sleeves, they’re too damp.
I’m guessing she’ll be in her pink rain jacket. Pink. Pink. Look out for pink. And then I hear the squish of boots in mud.
A shadowy figure emerges through the fog. In seconds, I can see.
My face slowly falls. The muffin slips out of my hand, and I breathe, “You?”
CHAPTER 31
October Brambilla
Colt called me at five a.m.
He said not to wake Zoey. Said to meet him at the lighthouse. He needed to talk alone.
To ask me to slip out on the woman I love—that was a humongous request that I can’t even believe I fulfilled. What fucking possessed me to do such a heinous thing?
I’m glaring at him while he’s shirtless and slouched on his tattered sofa. A bottle of OJ in his hand like he’s nursing last night’s power outage hangover.
“I thought this was urgent,” I snap. Honestly, I thought I’d walk in and he’d look more desperate to see me. Like he’d be crawling towards my feet. I feel awful standing here and not back in bed with Zoey.
“It is,” he says into a swig of juice.
Ugh! “Whatever you have to say better be worth it—because I just left your sister alone after I slept with her.”
Colt raises a hand. “Spare me the details.”
“I wasn’t going to give them to you,” I say coldly, a quick second from turning around and driving back to the docks.
“OB.” Colt sits forward, cupping the jug of juice. He hesitates a little. “Shit, I’m not any good at this.”
“At what?”
“Being honest without…poking the bear?” He shrugs and splays his hands open. “I’m not really someone people come to for heart-to-hearts.”
“You asked me here, Colt.”
“To tell you not to do it.” He intakes a sharper breath. “Don’t do it. Don’t turn yourself in.”
I open my mouth. Too stunned to say anything. I never thought Colt would ask me to stand down. To back away from the missing girl that he so desperately wanted to find. Well, he found her, and now he wants to act like nothing happened?
He licks his lips. “I prayed to God you’d love my sister with no reservations, no hesitations, as much as she fucking adored the shit out of you. I prayed you’d be good to her—that you’d make her happy. Make her laugh, and she’d have the kind of love that you can literally write books about. Not just made-up ones.”
