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“Uh-huh, but freaking Fred strikes again.”
The town moose stood defiantly in the middle of the road, staring them down like they were bothering him rather than the other way around.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t been killed by a car hitting him,” Lexi said.
“He’s unkillable. He’s demolished a few cars, though, including my sister-in-law Cameron’s MINI Cooper.”
“Well, that’s not exactly a Vermont car.”
“That’s what Will said, too. He made her get an SUV that she hates.”
Max lay on the horn, which only earned him a perturbed glance from the giant moose, so he put the truck in Park. “I guess we’re gonna be here for a minute.” He also turned on the hazard lights so they wouldn’t be hit from behind. Looking over at her, he said, “You want to tell me what happened back at the restaurant?”
“I don’t really know. I had this weird reaction to you saying what you did, and I don’t even know why. I spent years hoping I might one day hear those exact words from you.”
“What do you suppose caused that?”
“Anxiety has been a big problem, for me and my family. We’re all medicated for it.”
“I’m not surprised. You went through such a stressful thing.”
“It’s made it so even things that should be wonderful are viewed through a lens of doom. Like, how could something so amazing be real? Where will it go wrong? Because it always goes wrong.”
“Maybe it won’t this time.”
“I want so badly to believe that, but it always does. Every time I think things have turned around, I get kicked in the teeth again. And it occurred to me that if we pick up where we left off, I’d be taking you down with me this time.”
“Maybe you’d be taking me up rather than down. Has that occurred to you?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“We need to reprogram you to expect the best rather than the worst.”
“Good luck with that. My therapist has been trying for years to get me to see my glass as half full. I’m a work in progress.”
“We all are. You know that, right?”
“Some of us more than others.”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and caressed her face with his fingertip. “I want to make a believer out of you. I want to show you that the worst is behind you, and the rest… The rest is going to be why you survived.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just have a feeling. This was how our story was meant to play out. We were meant to go our separate ways for all this time and to find our way back to each other when we were ready to.”
“Did you readTwilightby any chance?”
“Haha, no, but my sisters made me watch the movies.”
“No wonder you’re talking about fated mates and such things.”
Max hit the horn again, but Fred wasn’t inclined to move. “All I know is that after a couple of years, I told people to stop asking me about you because I didn’t have the answers. I didn’t know where you were or why I’d stopped hearing from you. It was too painful to think about why you left and never came back.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I know why now, and it all makes sense. When you think about it, nothing has really changed between us. Neither of us wanted to be apart for ten years, so it’s like no time has passed.”
While Lexi processed that, Max put the window down. “What do you think, Fred?”
