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“Oh.” It’s a breath of a word.
“It wasn’t going to be better for a long time. It was never going to be better.”
A breeze picks up, ruffling her hair. I run my fingers through, letting the wind lift the ends, then settle my grip back in it.
“It did get better, though.” Lily gives my waist a squeeze. “It got a lot better. That was a really nice part of the hospital.”
“Didn’t matter. I still thought about everything else when we were in there. And I thought about telling all of them that they should ban me from being within a mile of that baby, because they’ve got him now. They don’t need me.”
Lily pulls back to look into my face. “That’s not true. You know that’s not true, don’t you?”
“Itistrue.”
“Jameson.” Her expression goes soft, and all at once I can feel my pulse in every inch of my veins. There’s too much heart. I have to get it out of me. “That’s not true. They all wanted you with them. They texted yousomany times. I almost—” She laughs, her cheeks turning pink. “I almost called them from your phone just to tell them where you were.”
“Holy fuck, Lily, you didn’t.”
“No! I didn’t. Otherwise, they’d all have known that we’re engaged.”
“We’re not engaged.” My abs hurt from a short, sharp laugh. “Don’t kid yourself.”
“Fine,” she says, a smile flickering onto her face like a sunbeam. “I wanted to call them so they wouldn’t worry. If you really think they don’t need you, then I’d have to argue against that.”
I really think they don’t need me.
I don’t say that to Lily.
“I’m not in the mood to argue.”
“Good.”
Lily stands there with me by the stump and lets me run my fingers through her hair, over and over and over. It’s not as much impact as chopping wood, but it feels just as good.
It feels better.
8
LILY
When I asked Jameson if we could stay at his cabin for another week, I pictured the two of us doing everyday things together. I didn’t know he chopped firewood, or even that he owned an axe, but it’s a normal enough cabin thing to do.
However, I didn’t expect it to be this…tense.
Jameson lets me hug him for a long time, his fingers in my hair, tugging with extreme gentleness. It reminds me of the way I used to hold a baby blanket with satin edges when I was younger. Not to do any damage, just to remind myself that it was still there.
Then he takes a deep breath and goes back to chopping wood.
I don’t hate it, as far as manly chores go. Jameson looks hot in the dappled sunlight with his skin all glistening and his hair curling at the temples, beginning to come loose from his man bun.
I’m not going to ask him any more questions about the hospital, but he’s right. It is a little sex-objecty to stand here staring without saying anything.
Plus, there’s something about his face that worries me, and it’s not the black eye courtesy of the hail. He wassoanimated when he was talking about me and the hospital and his horrifying past experiences, but it settled back into strained tension, like something’s eating at him.
More than one thing is eating at him, obviously, but I don’t know how to…lighten it, I guess. I don’t want it to be so heavy on his shoulders. I tried to hint that I like him and, yes, care about him by reminding him that technically he’s still my fake fiancé, but I don’t think I pulled it off.
I pick up my lemonade again and wrap my hand around the sweating can.
“So.”
