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Tears ran silently down her cheeks, dropping onto the table, making the card look blurry in her hands. How had she given up on the two of them as a couple? How could she give up on the dream they had on that day?
She wanted to hear his booming, “Good morning, Sunshine!” greeting every morning. She wanted his strong arms around her. She wanted to work side-by-side with him. She wanted to spend her life dreaming big with him and working toward those dreams.
She wanted the man who had been part of her family for most of her life. She wanted that man to start a family with her. She wanted the man who knew no stranger and gathered everyone in. She wanted the man who, when everyone wanted to be around him, wanted to be with her. She wanted that open, welcoming smile that drew people in. And she wanted that smile that he kept just for her. She wanted the love and support he kept just for her. She wanted it all.
Yet she’d made the worst decision of her entire life and had thrown it all away. She dropped her forehead to her folded arms on the table and cried.
eighteen
MARCUS
Marcus headed into Elsmore Market and made a beeline to the non-foods section in search of shipping boxes. Even though he had moved into Everett’s and Hannah’s basement just nine days ago so he knew very well how much stuff he had, the number of shipping boxes he needed to send the things he wanted to keep still surprised him.
He had thought of taking everything that wasn’t logical to send to Hawaii over to a storage unit at Pack It In, but he realized that it would be a tether holding him to Nestled Hollow. Proof that he was still holding on, hoping that something would work out between him and Joselyn, and then he could just pull himself back on that tether.
He couldn’t go through life like that, though. His heart wouldn’t survive. He and Joselyn had tried dating twice, and it hadn’t worked out either time. He had to face that it was time to move on whether he wanted to or not. So he cut that tether and listed everything for sale online. Ten years ago, their breakup had gutted him. This time, the pain of losing her was so great that he couldn’t imagine his heart could ever feel whole again.
The only way he would survive was to move far enough away that she, and the entire Zimmerman family, felt like a distant memory. A dream. Something no longer real. He had dated people over the past ten years, but he hadn’t ever been able to convince himself to have a relationship with anyone who wasn’t Joselyn, and he couldn’t imagine being able to anytime in the future, either. He would just have to learn to be okay with that.
While he was studying the sizes of boxes and mentally putting the items he had left in them, a notification sounded on his phone, and he pulled it out of his pocket. It was his last-minute flight finder app, and a one-way flight to Hawaii had just become available. It was leaving tonight at 8:10.
He glanced at the clock at the top of his phone. There should be enough time to finish boxing up everything he would have Everett ship to him— once he had an address in Hawaii to ship it to— pack a suitcase, drop off the last items that hadn’t sold online yet at a charity, go to the lawyer’s office in Denver who was making the business switch over to Joselyn official, and still make it to the airport on time.
He tapped the “Claim my seat” button and put in all of his information, then touched the “Purchase” button, waited to make sure the email verification showed up, then pushed the phone back into his pocket.
After grabbing the boxes he needed, he headed up toward the front of the store to pay, but Ed and Linda Keetch from the Main Street Business Alliance turned onto his same aisle. Great. He had been hoping, for possibly the first time, not to see anyone he knew while he was in the store so he wouldn’t have to fake happiness.
“Good morning!” he said, trying to make his voice sound normal and trying to smile big. He wasn’t sure if he pulled it off.
“How’s the business going?” Ed asked, shaking his hand while clapping him on the back with this other hand.
“It’s going.”
“I remember those first days of Keetch’s Burgers and Fries,” he said. “The grand opening went great, but for those few days after, you’re not sure if people will actually come. Anyway, we’ve been meaning to stop by and talk with you. You know”—
“Ed, stop,” Linda said, placing a wrinkled hand on his arm, but with all of her focus on Marcus. “That look in your eyes can’t just be from things going wrong with the business. Oh. Oh, no. You two broke up.”
Marcus’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You knew we were dating? How?” They hadn’t even told all of Joselyn’s family yet.
“No one told us,” she said in a calm, quiet voice. “We knew just by looking at the two of you.”
“Starting a business is hard on a relationship,” Ed said.
As they stood near the end of the non-foods aisle, Marcus really looked at both of them. “How did you two make it through it?”
“Sweetie,” Linda said, this time placing her hand on Marcus’s arm, “we weren’t nearly so daring as to start a brand new relationship while starting a brand new business.”
Ed chuckled softly. “No. Instead, we decided to start it when we had five kids, all under the age of ten.”
“But we’d gotten through a lot of bumps and our relationship was solid. Even though it was, it still taxed us to our max. Don’t give up on each other. Things can still work out.”
Marcus looked down at the linoleum. “I don’t think she wants things to work out between us. She’s made it clear that she’s fine with us being business partners, but not fine with us being a couple.”
“Do you know what you want?”
He nodded. He wanted to be her partner in everything. He wanted to date her, marry her, have a family with her, grow old with her, and wake up every day of his life next to her. He wanted to run With a Cherry on Top beside her. He wanted to walk hand-in-hand with her through all of life. He wanted to be there every time she got that sparkle in her eye and smile on her face when she got a new idea. He wanted to laugh with her and reminisce with her and make new memories with her.
“Are you sure she knows what she wants?” Linda asked.
