17
I AM SUFFICIENTLY calm and happily distracted through the rest of the weekend. Luka is adorably affectionate and a little smug after our shared moment on the couch, burying his nose in my hair every time I stand at the sink to wash dishes, threading his fingers through my belt loop as I bend to hang ornaments on the tree.
I thought maybe it would be like scratching an itch, that maybe the tension between us would pop like a balloon. Instead it just feels like I’ve turned the heat from simmer to full blast. I can’t stop looking at him. His permanently ruffled hair, the spread of his fingers around my knee, the lines by the corners of his eyes when he laughs. And for all my looking, he can’t stop touching. His thumb at the base of my neck, his lips against my temple.
It’s like instead of easing something, we unleashed it instead. Amplified it. I just want more.
I have a feeling I’m only ever going to want more where Luka is concerned.
The afternoon of Evelyn’s arrival sneaks up on me, the sky a perfect crisp blue as I wait in my office. Luka is out in the fields with Layla, helping trim the trees in the far field for the preselected tree lot. Beckett is in the barn with the group we bring on for seasonal help, walking them through their training.
And I am here, ready to welcome Evelyn with a mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and a peppermint stick. But what I’m really doing is staring blankly at various spots around the office as I remember what Luka’s hands felt like on my bare skin, his stubble brushing between my breasts, his hair tickling my neck as he panted above me.
I shake myself out of it, careful to keep the hot chocolate from spilling over onto my hand. All of our work is resting on this. Evelyn loving us enough to award us one hundred thousand dollars in prize money, and her millions of followers loving us enough to visit.
I watch a little car rumble its way down the entrance path, a cloud of dirt kicked up behind it. I know it’s her as soon as she turns into the lot, her wide smile visible even through the tinted windows. I exhale a deep breath and shake my hair out behind my shoulders. I can do this.
Evelyn is just as beautiful in person as she is online.
Impossibly long legs, flawless honey-colored skin, dark shiny hair that hangs down to the middle of her back. She climbs out of her car in front of the office and tips her head back, smiling as she looks at the wooden licorice I painted at midnight two nights ago to make this place look like a gingerbread house. Luka had begrudgingly helped me hammer the wooden gumdrops approximately seven inches apart across the porch hangover, even scaling the roof to drape fake white icing around the chimney.
I meet her on the front porch, and her smile tips into a grin as she bounces on the balls of her feet. She really is stunning, taller than I imagined her to be.
“Hi,” I say, and smile through my nerves. “Welcome to Lovelight Farms.”
“Holy shit,” she says back, and just like that, my anxiety fades. My brittle smile melts into a laugh, and I step down to where she’s gazing out at the fields with her hand shielding her eyes against the setting sun. I asked her to meet me at this time for a reason. There’s nothing like the farm just as the sun begins to dip in the sky, bright blue fading to deep cobalt, pink just starting to bloom from behind the clouds. I stand next to her and try to see it the way she does as a first-time visitor: The endless rows of full green trees. The lights that string throughout, just starting to blink awake in the early evening. The big red barn by the road with hand-painted arches. The climbing towers for the kids and the open hayloft lined with lights and filled with old broken- down tractors painted like reindeer. The ice-skating rink in the middle of it all, Bing Crosby crooning over the speakers.
I hand her the hot chocolate, and she curls her hands around it with a happy sigh. “This place is amazing.”
I grin. “Wait until you see the rest.”
FOUR BROWNIES LATER, and Evelyn looks like she’s ready to sink into the booth and sleep through the rest of this trip. We’re set up in my favorite spot in the bakehouse, a cozy little nook in the corner next to the stone fireplace.
It’s a high-back booth with green velvet seats and a mountain of plaid pillows, a dark-stained wood table in the middle. Evelyn grabs a pillow and nuzzles into the corner, an indulgent sound as she looks out the windows to the trees beyond.
She’s easy to like, easy to talk to, and I suppose that’s why she’s such a captivating personality online. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen her phone in her hand yet, and I say as much during a lull in our conversation.
She waves her hand between us, eyeballing the still half-full plate of brownies at the edge of the table. “I like to experience the places I visit first,” she says, rubbing at her bottom lip, “which sounds super pretentious, I know, and I realize I’m a person who makes their living on social media, but I hate how it robs us of that sometimes, you know? People get too caught up in how things look instead of how things feel.” She shrugs. “I’ll start content tomorrow. We’ll do live coverage, of course, and then a full highlight that will be published in a couple of weeks. You’ll have a mention on the blog, all of the stuff my team talked to you about.”
A mention on the blog, an official listing as a contest participant on her website, and a highlight on each of her social channels. Even without the cash prize that will be announced at the end of her trips, it’s enough to make a serious difference in our future.
She drags the brownie plate closer and then pushes it away again with a groan. “Though I might be in a chocolate coma by then.”
“Layla has a gift.”
Evelyn’s dark eyes light up. “That’s right. Your business partners, Layla and Beckett.”
I nod. “Layla does all the baking here on-site with her team. We serve during farm hours, and she does some catering for the town too.”
“Which is the cutest, by the way.”
I’m so glad she thinks so. Our little town isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The postal system has trouble delivering here, and we don’t have the big department stores where you can get everything from decor to mascara to a box of wine in one trip. You would have to make at least three separate stops for those things in Inglewild. Everyone is in everyone else’s business, and you can’t leave your house without running into at least four people you know. But there’s always someone to ask me how I’m doing. And a helping hand when I need it.
We’re a family. A strange one that you sometimes want an extended vacation from, but a family nonetheless. I glance at the table in the corner, where Gus, Clint, and Monty are destroying a box of French crullers.
Apparently, this is their time slot on the farm visitation schedule. Bailey and Sandra were here yesterday running around the hayloft like a couple of teenagers.
“Beckett handles all of our farm operations and oversees his own staff.
Mostly crops and maintenance, but he dabbles in other things too.” Like fostering a family of cats, apparently.
She nods, her eyes still darting between me and the brownies. I shift the plate closer to her, and she takes another with a laugh. “Thank you. And Luka, your boyfriend.” My stomach drops and my smile falters at the lie spoken aloud. I tell myself it’s for the farm, that it’s harmless in the scheme of things, but I still feel that wiggle of doubt in the back of my mind. “What’s it like working with your partner? I’m not sure many people could do it.”
I think of Luka flat on his stomach on the office roof, a nail between his teeth as he hammered fake licorice across the shingles. How later that night he rested his chin on my shoulder as I looked at expense reports, a quart of ice cream in his hand as he adjusted my Excel equations to make data input easier.
“It’s perfect,” I say, because it is. Too perfect. I want it forever, not just this week. The fake relationship hangover is going to kick me right in the
teeth. How do you go back to boundaries when your best friend has had his hand down your pants? I have no idea. I clear my throat. “We’re a good team.”
I glance at the clock above the counter and banish all thoughts of Luka and that couch from my mind. “They should be here soon, actually. I told them to meet us around now.”
Excitement lights up her dark eyes. “Good. I want to kiss Layla on the face for these brownies.”
“Who’re we kissing?” Beckett appears at the edge of the booth with a Santa mug, a frown on his face and a kitten on his shoulder. I recognize Cupid, the little black heart-shaped spot on her front paw giving her away. I reach my hands out for her and cuddle her close when she happily leaps into my arms.
“Layla, on account of the brownies,” I explain. He grunts in what I assume is agreement. “Beckett, let me introduce you to—”
I turn to the booth to look at Evelyn, and I’m surprised to see the look of shock on her face, her mouth hinged open. She snaps it closed quickly when I raise both eyebrows and immediately looks down at the table. I look back to Beckett in question, and he’s frozen with his mug halfway to his mouth, gaze glued on the pretty woman sitting opposite me.
“Um,” I say, eloquent as ever. I feel my face pinch in confusion. Beckett hasn’t looked away from Evelyn, and Evelyn hasn’t looked away from the tabletop. Cupid meows from the cradle of my arms. “Uh, Beckett, this is
Evelyn. Evelyn, this is Beckett.”
Silence.
“Uh,” I start again and desperately try to get Beckett’s attention. I kick him once in the shin and he flinches. I raise both eyebrows at him meaningfully.
“Nice to—” He clears his throat and puts his mug on the table, rubbing at his jaw. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Evelyn nods quickly and darts her eyes up once only to shoot them back down to the table. Her knuckles are white where she’s gripping the edge of it.
I frown and urge the brownie plate closer.
Beckett slides into the booth next to me after another lengthy hesitation, and the three of us sit in silence. I peer down at Cupid.
“Uh, we rescued these cats,” I offer, hoping to dispel the weird tension that’s settled over us. I have no idea what’s going on, no idea what happened when Beckett arrived. Could it be that she finds him attractive? I mean, sure, Beckett is nice to look at. Objectively speaking. I’ve seen him fluster the women who come to the farm more than once. But I can’t imagine that he would render someone like Evelyn mute. I stroke Cupid’s soft little head.
“They were living in the Santa barn. I thought they were raccoons.”
“She’s a cutie,” Evelyn mutters without a single ounce of enthusiasm. I frown. She looks up at me, a little fission of anxiety in the place between her perfect brows. “Listen, Stella, I have to run back to the hotel real quick,
okay?”
I frown. “I was going to—”
But she’s already moving, scooting out of the booth and sending pillows tumbling in every direction. “I’ll be back in the morning, and we’ll get a fresh start.”
She strides out of the bakehouse without another word. I stare at the door, the wreath hanging on the front swinging back and forth with the force of her retreat. Beckett takes a brownie next to me with a long-suffering sigh.
“Stella.”
I narrow my eyes. Beckett only uses that tone when we have a problem.
Cupid slips out of my grip and rubs herself against Beckett’s forearm. I’m going to have to talk to him about having the cats in the bakehouse. He looks at me and takes a giant bite of brownie.
“Please explain to me what just happened.”
He swallows and looks up at the ceiling then down at his hands. “Well—”
He shifts in the booth and puts his elbow on the table and then picks it up again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beckett at such a loss for words. “Ah, well.
I slept with that woman.”
“Beckett”—I do the math—“she’s been in town for six hours.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not today.” He messes with the cuff of his sleeve. “Do you remember when I went to that conference in Maine? The one about
organic farming?”
“You didn’t stop talking about how synthetic fertilizers are the worst for close to a month. You’re telling me you slept with Evelyn on that trip, and synthetic fertilizers is what I heard about?”
He scratches roughly at the back of his head and sends Cupid skittering across the table. He scoops her back up and places her in his lap. “I don’t— we don’t talk about stuff like that. And it was a one-time thing.” His eyes go hazy, a small smile kicking up on the right side of his mouth. I want to punch him in the face. “More like a three-time thing, I guess. She was staying at the same bed-and-breakfast I was. We met at a bar.”
I remember seeing her pictures from a tiny bed-and-breakfast in Maine.
Her photos of the wildflower bedspread and the fresh-cut herbs on the windowsill. It’s mind-boggling to me that Beckett was there. He was under that bedspread.
“Did it end badly? Why did she have that reaction?”
He shrugs and takes another bite of brownie.
“Beckett.” He chews and keeps his eyes firmly on the tabletop. This little booth has never been inspected so thoroughly. “Explain this to me.”
He shrugs again. “I don’t know, Stella. I can’t even explain this one to myself.” He finishes his brownie and reclines back in the booth. I have no idea what this means for the contest, for her trip here. Will she leave early?
Are we disqualified? “She was probably just surprised. We didn’t—we didn’t exactly talk much.” A furious blush lights up the back of his neck, and despite everything, I feel a bubbling burst of laughter catch in my chest. This whole situation is unreal.
I invented a fake boyfriend so Evelyn would find this place romantic.
Beckett unknowingly slept with her on a weekend trip to Maine. We have a mysterious trespasser dead set on disrupting the farm.
It would be comical if it wasn’t such a mess.
“She was the one who left first. We were, um, we spent the night together, and when I woke up in the morning, she was gone. All of her stuff was gone too.”
“You never tried to find her? Never saw her on social media?”
He scowls at me. “You know I don’t do anything on social media. I figured she had a reason for leaving the way she did. I don’t chase after
people who don’t want to be chased.”
“That’s fair,” I say.
We fall into silence. I survey Beckett and catalog the tension in his shoulders, the way he hasn’t stopped moving since Evelyn left. His fingers against the tabletop. His knee bouncing beneath it. A shift of his hips every few seconds in the booth seat. In my surprise, I forgot the most important thing.
“Hey,” I curl my hand just above his elbow and tug once. “You okay?”
He nods, ducking his head just a bit. “M’fine. Embarrassed mostly. I don’t want to mess anything up for us. I know how important this is.”
I flinch. He has no idea how important this is because I haven’t been honest with him. A flash of red in the window catches my attention, Layla’s bright jacket as she and Luka trudge toward the entrance of the bakehouse.
She laughs at something he says, both of their cheeks flushed pink with the cold. I make a decision.
“About that. I need to talk to you and Layla. Luka too.”
I wait until everyone is situated in the booth, warm drinks for Layla and Luka after their morning in the fields. Layla’s been talking about proper sawing techniques since they came in, a bemused Luka trailing after her from the door to the back kitchen to our cozy booth in the corner. But she cuts off abruptly when she notices how tense Beckett is at the edge of the wooden bench, the frown on my face.
“Weird vibes,” she says, and I feel Luka’s booted foot nudge mine under the table, a silent Are you okay? with the arch of his eyebrow. He’s wearing his tree hunting boots, the ones with the flannel.
“We have some—” I shoot a glance at Beckett, who looks like he wants to melt into the floor. I pat his back once in solidarity. “We have some updates.”
“I slept with Evelyn,” Beckett offers without an ounce of lead-up or context. Layla bobbles her hot chocolate and spills half of it on the table between us. Luka just stares at him, brows furrowed. I toss Layla a stack of napkins.
“I’m confused.” Luka looks at me, then Beckett, then me again. “Didn’t she just get here?”
Beckett shares the same limited details with them as he did with me. Bed- and-breakfast. Maine. Farmer conference. He sounds like he’s recounting a trip to the dentist, not a wild, sexy weekend adventure. Layla’s eyes grow bigger at every staccato sentence until she’s practically draped across the table, enraptured. Beckett concludes his story and slumps back into his seat.
Cupid nudges once at his chin with her tiny paw.
“Beckett”—Layla breathes—“I didn’t think you had sex.”
He shifts and grumpily crosses his arms. “Of course I have sex.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m just private about it.”
“Obviously.”
“Okay.” I rub at my forehead. “That’s enough of . . . that.” Beckett looks like he wants the floor to open beneath him. “I have something I need to tell you guys.” Three pairs of eyes focus their attention on me, Luka’s narrowed in concern. I muster my courage and straighten my spine. I owe them an explanation. I’ve owed them an explanation for a long time now. “I’ve been pretty vague with how the farm is doing financially. The truth is, it’s not great.”
Beckett narrows his eyes. “That is an equally vague statement.”
“Even though we had an amazing year last year, we still aren’t turning a huge profit.” Maybe if I say it faster, it will be easier. Luka’s boot is still between mine, and he taps my foot once. “Which I expected and accounted for. What I didn’t budget for was all the extra repairs we had this last year, the loss of the south pasture, the missing shipments, and the debts we owe to
a couple of different suppliers—”
“Excuse me, what?” says Beckett.
I ignore him and continue. “All that is to say, we are sort of hemorrhaging money right now. I’m hoping this season will help our numbers, especially with the added attention of having Evelyn here. But I’m really banking on that grand-prize money.”
“I don’t understand,” Layla starts slowly. “How are we having money problems? I still get my paycheck every other week. So does my team. They haven’t been late or short once.”
Beckett breathes out sharply through his nose. “Same.” Given the thunderous expression on his face, he knows exactly why that is.
“Stella.” Luka’s voice is quiet, pained. I guess he figured it out too. I keep my eyes on the wet napkins clumped together in the center of the table.
“I’m not ever going to cut back the paychecks of anyone who works here.
I made you both a promise when you decided to join the farm, and I’m going to keep it.”
I was afraid, I want to say. I didn’t want you to think I was a failure. I didn’t want to let you down. I didn’t want you to leave.
“And what about your paychecks?”
My pantry is chock-full of ramen noodles. Luka stuffs protein bars in my glove box every time he comes home. The cottage came with the farm and my car has been fully paid off for years. I don’t need a consistent paycheck, not like Beckett and Layla do.
When I’m silent, Beckett stands with a huff from the table. “I’m leaving,” he announces, succinct as ever. I expected this, but I still wince at the heavy thud of his boots against the tile of the bakery. He strides to the door, changes his mind halfway, and comes walking back. The firefighters in the corner do their best to look like they’re occupied, studying the last French cruller on their plate like it’s invented electricity.
Beckett returns to the edge of the booth and stares at me. His disappointment is the worst of it, the sadness and hurt that lingers in the firm press of his mouth. He swallows once.
“This isn’t what partners do,” he says quietly. I watched Beckett argue with two of his sisters once. He had been quiet while they yelled, arms crossed over his chest, letting them carry on while he just stood there. At the time, I thought it was amusing. Look at them wasting all their energy just to face a brick wall. Now though, I can sympathize. Quiet, disappointed Beckett is a thousand times worse than any show of anger.
I nod once.
This day hasn’t gone at all how I planned.
He leaves to the merry jingle of silver bells above the door. I wish he would have slammed it instead.
Layla reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “While I am just as angry as Beckett at you hiding this from us, I want to add that I love you.”
She stands from the table and pulls her jacket back on, flipping the hood up and over her head. She looks like a grumpy Arctic explorer. “We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got an order to deliver in town.”
“You’ll be back?”
She gives me a sad smile. “Yeah, honey. I’ll be back.”
I watch her leave with a thousand apologies on my tongue, but I bite them back. Shouting after her isn’t going to change anything. I slump in the booth and avoid Luka’s eyes, collecting the mess from the spilled hot chocolate. I know there’s a lesson here in telling the truth, but I can’t bring myself to apply it to our situation. Maybe when I see Evelyn tomorrow—if I see Evelyn tomorrow, my brain helpfully reminds me—I can be honest with her.
That Luka isn’t my boyfriend, that this has all been a misunderstanding.
“Wanna walk home?” Luka asks.
I nod at the tabletop and take a deep breath that wobbles around the edges.
Luka hears it and sighs, his hand cupping my elbow and pulling me into him as soon as I’m out of the bench seat. I hold the wad of wet paper napkins from the spilled hot chocolate over his shoulders and try not to get his jacket wet.
“It’ll be fine,” he says somewhere above my head. His arms squeeze tight, but he doesn’t do his one-two-three. I tell myself not to read into it. “We’ll figure it out.”
FIGURING IT OUT apparently means going over all my invoices and budget spreadsheets in excruciating detail while Luka hums under his breath and makes various other sounds that do nothing to soothe my frayed nerves. A cough into his hand when I show him the spreadsheet with our missing
shipments. A low grumble under his breath when I pull up the invoices with amounts due in red. A sigh when we look over the estimate for the trees in the south pasture and how it impacts our bottom line.
He rubs his fingertips along his jaw and clicks around on my computer while I resist the urge to rip the laptop out of his hands. Going from sharing this with no one to sharing it with everyone has me agitated and off-kilter.
Luka doesn’t spare me a glance as I stomp my way into the kitchen.
“You could charge admission,” he offers as I wrestle with my wine bottle.
I am about three seconds away from breaking the neck off on the edge of the counter. “That would help you out moving forward.”
“If you look at spreadsheet three at the bottom”—the cork finally gives with a satisfying pop—“I projected out those numbers. I don’t want to charge admission if I can help it. It makes it more cost-prohibitive to families. We’re the only farm in the state that doesn’t charge at the gates, and I’d like it to stay that way for as long as possible.”
Luka clicks over to the spreadsheet in question with a humming noise. I drink directly from the bottle.
“You could charge anyone over the age of twenty. That way there’s still an appeal for families with kids and teens. You could even lump tickets into a full package. Include hot chocolate, the ice-skating rink, and twenty percent off a fresh-cut tree.”
That is . . . a good idea. I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it myself. I take another pull from the bottle as Luka stands from the couch, placing my laptop on the kitchen table on his way to me. I offer him the bottle, but he shakes his head, collecting that too and putting it with my laptop.
He holds out his arms. “C’mere.”
His cheeks are still flushed pink from his time outside today, twin spots of color against his golden skin. I stare at him, his open arms, the soft faded material of his thermal shirt. It clings tight around his biceps, and I get distracted there for a second, teeth sawing over my bottom lip.
“Why?” I ask, suspicious.
He huffs a laugh through his nose and steps closer, his hands over my shoulders. He tugs once and slips his grip to my wrists, adjusting my hands
until they’re looped around his neck. He spins us to the refrigerator in two smooth steps, my knees knocking against his the whole way.
“What’s happening here?” I ask again, doing my best to follow his movements.
He ignores me, reaching above the fridge for the old radio I keep up there.
There’s a burst of static when he turns it on, twisting the knob to find a clear station. It was my mom’s. Every place we lived, she put it up on top of the fridge. She liked to dance to Bruce Springsteen during dinner. AC/DC during cleanup. We’d wash dishes, and she’d swing her hips and shake her hair. She used to say she could have been one of those girls climbing on top of the cars in the music videos. Teenage me had been horrified.
“I want to talk to you,” he says.
I stare pointedly at my hands curled around his neck, my chest pressed to his. “And this is talking?”
He finds what he’s looking for, the smooth sound of Louis Armstrong crooning through the old speakers about a silent night. It’s a little tinny and crackling with static, the old radio not the best in audio quality. But I love it.
Luka tugs me close and spins me into the center of the kitchen, one hand at my hip, the other between my shoulder blades. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble?”
“Um.” It’s hard for me to think when he’s holding me like this. Slowly swaying around my kitchen with his nose at my temple. “Why are we slow- dancing?”
Luka rests his chin on top of my head. “This is how my parents argued,” he confesses quietly, a grin in his voice. “Or I guess, this is how they had big conversations. My dad said he liked to keep my mom close, but I really think he wanted a way to politely restrain her.”
I huff a laugh and relax into his hold, letting him spin me slowly. It’s nice to hear him talk about his dad, to have a good memory. I try to picture a younger Luka, rolling his eyes at his parents dancing in the kitchen. It makes me smile. His grip tightens when he feels me soften in his hold, palm slipping down from between my shoulders to the center of my back. “So, why didn’t you tell me?”
There’s a thin thread of hurt in the quiet question, a lingering sadness around the edges that has me tucking closer, resting my forehead against his collarbone. He smells like pine here, another remnant of his time in the fields.
The reason I didn’t tell Luka is the same reason I didn’t tell anyone. “Because I thought I was handling it,” I tell him, a lick of frustration slipping through.
“I am handling it.”
My plan is a good one. Get through this trip with Evelyn. Charm her senseless. Win the contest and settle our debts with the suppliers. From there, we should be solid enough to make it through to spring. At this point, even if we don’t win the prize money, I think we’ll be okay. The added influx of customers from the feature on Evelyn’s channels should be enough to pull us out. I’ll just—have to eat ramen for a little bit longer.
“You still could have told me,” he says, tipping his chin back until he’s looking down at me. He looks younger like this, tired from a day in the fields, a yawn creaking at his jaw.
“I didn’t want—” I think about those early days when I realized how deep in it we were, the numbers on my computer screen not making sense no matter how many times I sorted and rearranged the columns. I had wanted to call Luka so badly, ask him to take a look, reassure me. But I also wanted to do this myself. This farm, this business, it’s the first thing that’s ever been mine and mine alone. “I didn’t want you to rescue me.”
His eyebrows jump in surprise. “Helping friends is off-limits now?”
“It’s not like that. It’s just—do you remember that year I decided I wanted to learn how to ride a skateboard? And you said you’d help?”
He smiles at the memory. “Yeah, you bought that red helmet with the flames on the side. Knee pads to match. You were so cute.”
I roll my eyes. I wasn’t trying to be cute. I was trying to be safe and a little badass. I did like that helmet though. “Well, as you remember, those knee pads paid off. I was horrible.”
The tug of a grin spreads until he’s laughing, no doubt recalling my tumble into the fountain in the middle of town. “You were tragically horrible,” he agrees.
“Right, and what did you do? How did you help me achieve my dream of coasting down the street on a skateboard?”
His laughter settles into a warm rumble of a chuckle. “I gave you a piggyback.” He smiles. “I hopped on the skateboard with you on my back, and we flew down Main Street.”
It’s a good memory. I can still remember the way I clutched tight at his shoulders, every bump in the sidewalk as we rocketed past the bookstore, the greenhouse, the little park with daffodils at the entrance. I nod. “Yeah, you helped me do the thing I wanted to do by literally putting me on your back.” I smile and run my fingers through his hair, helpless not to touch him. Not while he looks so happy and so sad at the same time. “You have done that countless times in our friendship, and I’m so grateful. But this time I wanted —I wanted to be my own hero. I wanted to do it myself.”
He pushes his head into my hand, closing his eyes. “Leaning on other people doesn’t make your achievements any less yours.” He opens his eyes, dark like melted chocolate. “Do you remember when I convinced myself I wanted to run a half marathon? What did you do?”
I hated that idea. I woke up every morning before the sun and grumbled all the way through putting on my tennis shoes and pulling on my sports bra, Luka grunting on the other end of the line. We had entire conversations through sounds alone those mornings.
“You woke up every morning with me for my run and did an equal distance here at the same time. So I’d feel less alone.”
“About that,” I mumble. “I may have just ran to Ms. B’s and got a plate of
cinnamon rolls.”
He blinks at me. “What? But your GPS—”
“I paid one of the high school kids to run my route. He’d meet me out front of the bakery, and we’d do the exchange. He was trying to make the cross country team, so it worked out.”
Luka laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. He nuzzles once at my temple and spins us back across the kitchen, over to the fridge. “Regardless,” he hums. “You woke up with me. You sent me healthy snacks. You believed in me and encouraged me. You even made a sign for the race.”
A bright pink sign with gold glitter that said YOU THINK YOU’RE TIRED? I’VE BEEN HOLDING THIS SIGN SINCE 9:00.
On the other side: I’M SO PROUD OF YOU, LUKA.
“What I’m trying to say is that you can trust me. You can trust me to help you carry the load. You don’t have to do all of this alone.” He catches an errant curl, rubbing it gently between thumb and forefinger. He twists it lightly and tugs once. “I know you can take care of yourself. You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you. But let me hold your hand while you do it, okay?”
I nod, a hot pressure behind my eyes. The music switches to Nat King Cole, and I practically melt into Luka’s arms, another turn around my
kitchen.
“All right,” I say.
He brushes a kiss against my temple and whispers back. “All right.”
