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“Thank you,” I say when Nate’s settled into his seat.
He reaches behind him to grab his seat belt, my gaze catching on his hand as he patiently guides the latch plate into the buckle with a small click. “Anytime.”
I avert my eyes to the gearshift, my heart skipping a beat.
I forgot how hot it is to watch someone drive a stick. Especially when that someone is a six-three ginger with the body of a lumberjack and the mind of a kinky poet.
I glance out the window at the wide-open sky. Help me out here.
“You can roll that up if you want,” Nate says. “The window.”
“I’m all right. Feels good.” I mean it. Looking in the side mirror, I see that my face is bright red. The cool air will help with that. I hope, anyway.
Nate puts the Bronco into gear, and we rumble down the street. It all comes back to me in an instant: the way the truck rocks like a boat on wheels, the hungry growl of the tire treads, the floral scent of Lucy’s doggie shampoo wafting up from her warm little body. The same kind Nate used on her years ago.
It’s like I never left.
Really, it’s like Nate never left me.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if that’s why I’m feeling better all of a sudden. I’ve tricked myself into believing this is one of those lazy, indulgent Saturdays Nate and I used to have. We’d sleep late. Fuck. Then we’d take a meandering drive to Boone or Blowing Rock or Bojangles, just because.
But Nate did leave, and now I’m planning his wedding to someone else.
If I keep the conversation on that someone else, maybe I’ll feel less like a dick about the way my body’s lit up right now.
“Tell me about you and Reese,” I say. “I only got the broad strokes when I talked to her on the phone about your relationship. She said y’all met through work?”
Nate shifts into a higher gear when we hit a straightaway. The breeze rips through the windows, tussling Nate’s hair out of his carefully combed coif.
“We did, yeah. Reese’s dad owns a venture capital firm that invests money in up-and-coming beverage companies across the South. Breweries, bars, distilleries like ours. We were looking for some money to help get us off the ground, and when I went to present our business plan to Noble, it was Reese who actually heard my pitch. A week later, she called me up and made an offer, and we went out to celebrate. We ended up shutting down the restaurant.”
“You talked for that long,” I say with a smile, despite feeling like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. “Sounds like an instant connection.”
Nate pauses. I can’t read his expression. “Being with her felt effortless, you know? Like pieces clicking into place. We were together twenty-four seven from the start. Closing the deal, coming up with a strategic plan for the company, then starting construction on the new distillery—”
“You two made it happen. What you’d always hoped for.”
Nate talked all the time about his big plans for Kingsley Distilling. He also worried about its future and often wondered if he could build the brand and the business he felt his family’s whiskey deserved. We both thought it was a special thing, that they were making whiskey according to the same recipe his great-grandfather used back in the bootleg days, and we believed the recipe and its history should be preserved.
It wasn’t an easy task. But here he is, absolutely crushing it with the help of a whip-smart, kind, ambitious woman.
I’m ecstatic for him.
I’m also gutted I couldn’t be that woman.
I could wonder what Reese has that I don’t. I could ask what she gives him that I couldn’t. But I know the answer, and maybe that’s what hurts worst of all—knowing how I fucked up and pushed him away.
Nate was the one who left. But the truth is, I sure as hell didn’t give him a good reason to stay.
“Guess we did make it happen, yeah.” He puts on his blinker.
“Reese is excellent, Nate. I’ve really enjoyed meeting her.”
He nods, smiling. “Thank you for saying that. I happen to think she’s excellent too.”
The knife in my chest twists. “I’m excited for y’all. This wedding is going to be gorgeous.”
“With you in charge, I have no doubt.”
A long beat of silence stretches between us as we leave downtown. Buildings thin. Forest thickens.
Tension ripples down my neck and shoulders. Am I imagining all the things we haven’t said pooling between us? Or is Nate sensing their presence too? The things we can’t say.
The things I didn’t say in time.
I glance at him. I still can’t read his expression, but I do notice his sleeves are rolled up, revealing enormous forearms covered in a fine sheen of auburn hair and a smattering of tattoos: an angel, a bird, a tiny Scottish flag.
