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“Where is Goose?” I ask the staff member.
“She asked to go to her room.”
Nodding, I return my focus to Austen.
“Can we talk?” I ask, winning a suspicious frown from Suzanne and a little smile from Hunter.
Austen’s expression, though, bounces back and forth between pure excitement and absolute terror. As she leaves the safety of her family and guides me deeper into the large house, I don’t know how I’ll talk this fearful woman out of her safe space.
Though McMurdo Valley is beautiful and I’m clearly what Austen wants, I feel like she’s ready to say no to whatever I offer.
AUSTEN
Walla Walla and I enter the library where I spent so much of my life hidden away. I’d been broken when I returned from Canary Basin. I gave up my horses and going to parties with Coco. I focused on my mom and school. This library is where I spent prom night. It’s where I hid during the weekends when the local college had their parties.
Now, I hide here with Walla Walla. I need him to understand how I’m not emotionally capable of traveling to McMurdo Valley yet. My reasons seem perfectly acceptable in the safety of my mind. However, I worry they’ll sound like madness out loud.
Walla Walla’s blue eyes watch me as he ties back the top part of his thick blond hair. I take in all the little details I could never enjoy from afar. The black ink across his right elbow. How fair the hairs are across his forearm. The different shades of blond in his beard. The faint scar near his temple.
“I can’t go with you,” I tell Walla Walla. “I’m thankful for what you’ve done for me. I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for you. Plus, I won’t deny you were my first crush. With all that said, I can’t go with you.”
Walla Walla doesn’t get angry. His expression barely shifts in reaction to my words.
“Any other time and I’d stay around here to wait for you. But my club’s hurting right now. They need me around. But I don’t want to leave without you.”
“What if I get things in order here and come visit you in, say, six months?”
Walla Walla rubs his chin and asks, “What do you need a whole six months to get in order?”
I consider how six months would allow me to lose fifteen pounds and beautify myself in other ways. With a little time and effort, I’d be more like I was when I had those hopeful, teenage dreams.
Explaining my insecurities to Walla Walla feels like a mistake. Instead, I say, “My business just burned down.”
“In six months, it’ll be as good as new. Why would you want to leave it then?”
I self-consciously rub my belly and think about how I was so much prettier when I was young. That Austen would have climbed on the back of Walla Walla’s motorcycle and let her hair fly as they raced around McMurdo Valley. She wouldn’t have minded someone touching her body. She was an entirely different person.
“I just don’t feel ready.”
Walla Walla frowns at the squeaky noise my voice makes at the end. He doesn’t understand why I’m panicking. He must think I’m insane.
That was always going to be the real problem between us. I’ve created a fantasy about him falling for me based on fate. But that’s not how anything works. The reality is he would have liked me because I was young and wild. I’m no longer either of those things.
“I haven’t dated in a long time, and I wasn’t ready for you,” I mumble as tears fill my eyes. “I don’t look my best. But if I had six months or even a little less time, I think I could be in a better place mentally and physically.”
At first, Walla Walla stares at me like I’m crazy. However, as I wipe my eyes, I find a smile slowly warming his face.
“You’re feeling insecure. That’s what this is, right?” When I nod, he smiles easier. “I thought you were blowing me off. But you’re just shy.”
Nodding, I hope he can understand. “I could be more confident in a few months.”
Walla Walla brushes his thumb across my damp cheek and shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s true. I bet you’ll just be more nervous after six months of worrying about things that don’t matter.”
“But those things do matter.”
“Not really. Yeah, you’re older, Austen. You’re a little curvier. That’s natural. Why should you fix stuff that’s not important to me?”
“Because it’s important to me.”
