On the Slopes of Tahoe (Love Along the Way #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Rory

I ’m pulling off my damp socks when the sound of a slamming door echoes through the house. There goes Willow , I think with a sigh.

In the kitchen, Breck is hunched over, forearms propped on the counter, head in his hands. He looks exhausted, dejected. I saw the sadness in his eyes on the dock, the same as my own.

Turns out I lied to Jamie when I promised I would protect my heart, because standing here, I wish I could ask Breck to stay. But I know I can’t. I want to go to him, hold him, but his expression is unreadable. I don’t know if the comfort of my touch, my body even, is what he wants or needs right now.

I know it’s what I want.

“Come here.” His voice is rough, and I take up the spot next to him, letting our shoulders brush.

Why is it so right being near him?

“Rory, look at me,” he insists, shifting his body so he leans on one arm to face me. He pushes my hair, which I was using as a shield, behind my ear. His fingers find my chin and force my eyes to his. I don’t know what he sees there, but I imagine they broadcast my swirling emotions.

He opens his mouth, but afraid of what he might say, I lean forward and press my lips to his. Avoiding this conversation doesn’t help anything. It will happen eventually, but I don’t want it to be right now. I don’t think he does either.

I break the kiss first, my breathing ragged. There’s a sound from upstairs that draws both our attention.

“Is she okay? I could go talk to her,” I offer, wondering if talking to someone besides her dad could help, but I don’t want to overstep. I’ve grown to love her over these past few months, but I know I’m not her mother. It’s going to hurt to be separated from her just as much as from Breck.

“She’ll come down when she’s ready. I think she just needs a little time.” He shrugs. “Why don’t you go and get changed out of your wet clothes. I’ll get started on dinner.”

Thirty minutes and a hot shower later, I walk out of my room to music and the smell of sauce and dough and cheese. Willow grabs my hand the second I round the corner from the hall.

“We made homemade pizzas, and I made yours in the shape of a heart again.” She’s less solemn than earlier, her voice back to her normal octave. “You know, because I love you.”

It should feel amazing to hear those words from someone who I know means them, but my stomach hollows out.

“I love you too, Willow,” I say, pulling her hand until she’s in my arms and I can hug her tight. I will my eyes to hold back the tears threatening to spill out for how unfair it is that Sydney stole my brother and now it gets to have Breck and Willow too.

I’ll be left here. Alone. Again.

“What’s going on here?” Breck’s joy-filled voice comes from behind us. I let Willow go and she saunters over to the fridge.

“Nothing. Just talking about dinner,” I say, attempting to control the quiver in my voice. “I hear it’s pizza night.”

“It is, indeed.” Breck comes up next to me, hair wet and smelling of fresh snow and spice, making me wonder what soap he uses. “You want a glass of wine?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Go take a load off and I’ll bring you one, yeah?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Willow snuggles into my side on the sofa and I rest my head on hers. For a minute, I let myself imagine I could have a life that looks like this. A life where I have a man in the kitchen making me dinner and a daughter who’s excited to cuddle up and tell me about her day.

“Hey.” Breck’s voice is quiet, and when I open my eyes, he’s standing over me. He holds out a glass and I take it, our fingertips brushing.

“Thanks.”

“Dinner’s ready too.”

Willow jumps up and pulls me toward the table. There’s a heart-shaped pizza with RORY written in pepperonis. It may not be my preferred Mediterranean one, but this one is even better.

Willow is back to her normal, happy-go-lucky self as we eat dinner. I don’t know if Breck talked to her since she shut herself in her room earlier, but I’m glad to see her smiling again.

“Willow Bear, go brush your teeth. Call down when you’re in bed and I’ll come say good night,” Breck says once the counters are back to sparkling and the leftovers are put away.

“Thanks for dinner,” I say through a yawn.

Breck smiles. “Willow wanted to do something special for you and it’s the only thing she knows how to make.”

Everything inside me warms and I stand in silence, watching him, soaking in the moment and all the things it’s making me feel.

“Daddy!” Willow’s voice carries down the stairs, cutting him off as he was about to open his mouth to speak again. “I’m in bed.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

He jogs off, bounding up the stairs two at a time, and I quietly follow. I never participate in bedtime, but part of me wants to, just this once, even if only as a silent observer.

When I approach the doorway, Breck is reading her a story, then she starts to read it to him instead. I close my eyes and imagine sitting with them, listening to her read. When the story’s over, I hear them shifting around and peek my head around the door. Breck leans over her, tucking the blankets around her small body. Leaning close, he whispers something in her ear, and she whispers something back. Words that are just for them.

An hour later, Willow is fast asleep and Breck and I are hunkered down in the living room, an empty wine bottle and our two glasses on the coffee table.

We’ve been going over every possible detail for Willow Tree Elopements. Which dates I have booked, who’s officiating… As of last week, Patrick is now part of the team. He’s a friend of mine and Jamie’s from college who recently moved back to the area. With his confident, outgoing personality, I have no concerns about his ability to be an amazing officiant. And he’s available for all of the dates Jamie isn’t.

Breck has the website fully up and running and has walked me through all the necessary steps of the scheduling and CRM software. It’s a lot, and even though he’s been showing me everything as he’s set it up, touching on all of it at once is overwhelming.

“Do you really think I can do this on my own?” I ask, chewing my lip. It’s a question I’ve been terrified to voice for weeks.

“You absolutely can.” He walks his fingers up my arm. “You can and you will. And you won’t ever truly be on your own. I’m only a phone call or an email away. Or hell, a flight even. I know I can’t just jump on a plane whenever I want, but if you really needed it, I could be here.”

Never in a million years would I ask that of him, but it fills my heart with something warm that he would even offer.

“You aren’t alone.” His thumb coasts over my jawline. “You have me. You have Wes and Jamie and Joss. You have support, you just have to lean into it. But at the end of the day, all you really need is you. I believe in you.”

My eyes swim with tears. As much as I was dreading that question, I’m glad I asked. I needed those words in a way I never knew. I needed them from him .

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he says back. “No more doubting yourself. You’ve got this. Your new place is good to go next week?”

“Yeah, on Monday. It’ll be weird living down in the valley and not right on the mountain. Maybe that change will be good for me too. Some space.”

“I wish we could help you get settled in. You did so much for us when we got here.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I promise I’ll bring you a fancy candle or something when we visit.” He grins, but it falls a little flat.

“Don’t—” I cut myself off by biting my lip again, this time so much that it hurts.

“Don’t… what?”

“Please don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I won’t. I’m not. We will come back. Wes and Joss are going to want to come visit and I already told Willow we’d come with them when they do. I don’t know when it’ll be, but we will come back, okay?”

I nod, but something in me says it’s not true. He and Willow will go back to their lives in Sydney and figure out how to move forward after everything. Even if they do come visit, it’ll never be the same. It’ll never be like this. He’ll find someone to love him, and she’ll be the one to pick my housewarming gift. Or maybe it’ll be me who finds someone, and the thought of that should make me happy, but it doesn’t. Either way, we won’t be us like we are right now. It’ll change, and I wish it didn’t have to.

“We’ll still be friends, right? I know you’ll go back to having Wes when you get home, but…” I can’t finish the sentence.

Breck pulls me into him and hugs me tight. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I’m going to go home and forget about you?”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds childish… I’m only making it more obvious that I’m just Wes’s little sister, aren’t I?” I try to escape his hold, feeling exposed and raw all of a sudden.

“Stop,” he says, keeping me close. “You’re not just Wes’s little sister. God, don’t you know that? Rory, you’re like sunshine. You bring light to everything around you. You’re warm and bright. And you know what else makes you like the sun?”

I shake my head, too nervous to speak.

“There’s no alternative to the sun. It may get eclipsed sometimes, but it’s always there, shining anyway. That’s you. Your parents have tried to control you, you’ve felt overshadowed by Wes, but in the end, none of that matters because you will come through brighter than ever.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I used to be a sun too. I thought all my light, the positivity that I lived by, the brightness of my future was gone when I got here. I couldn’t see through the darkness Talia left me in. You lit up those shadows. You showed me your light. You let me pull from it so I could find mine again, and for that I’ll always be eternally grateful to you. And you know what I love?”

My breath hitches on the word even though I know he’s not going to say it’s me. He can’t say it’s me. He won’t.

“I love that the sun in Sydney is the same as the sun in Tahoe. We’ll never be that far apart. Does that answer your question about if we’ll still be friends when I go home? Does that soothe your worries that I’m going to walk away and forget you? How could I forget the sun?” he says, letting the words sink in as he holds my gaze.

I press forward and seal my lips over his. I have only two more nights with this man and I want to enjoy every last minute of them. He may think I’m the sun, that his light was dimmed and it was me who brought it back, but I’ve never burned as bright as I have with him.

He encouraged me to fly while also being the soft and stable landing place I could rely on. With him leaving, it’s like I’m standing at the precipice and have to decide if I can fly on my own. I know that’s what I need. I know that I can. But it’s terrifying to look down and know he won’t be there to catch me if I fall.

I need to believe in myself to take that final leap, and I never will if he’s constantly there as my safety net.

I lean into him farther, afraid to lose the way he lights me up. He’s going to take that with him too. I realize I don’t mind if he does, so long as it means he can be the sun to Willow. If it means he’ll have a light to see his future—because it’s going to be great, and I don’t want him to miss it.

I wish I understood why we were only meant for this. For this short space of time. Maybe we were destined to help each other so we could go on to the futures we deserve, even if they aren’t the same.

“Rory.” He groans against my lips, moving me so I sit astride him on the couch. “Be here. Be with me, right now. Let me distract you from all those thoughts in your head, and you can distract me from all the ones in mine. Just be here, yeah?” His voice is ragged with emotion and desire, and I give in.

We choose each other one more time, before we have to choose ourselves.