Chapter 30
Fact or Fiction?
You are my emergency contact.
Addison
It’s dusk when I finally return to Fletcher Mountain from my run in the cemetery. I don’t usually do a lot of running in the
winter because the cold hurts my lungs, but after last night, I needed it more than I needed comfortable breathing.
However, even a jog and a visit with my brother did nothing to calm the anxiety still swirling in my belly. I haven’t spoken
to Luke since he walked away from me on the side of the mountaintop last night. I saw him briefly in the hallway this morning
but then he closed himself off in his room and I never heard from him the rest of the day.
I’m not even sure who is supposed to be mad at who anymore. I’m mad at him for not being honest with me. He’s mad at me for
keeping him at a distance. I guess? But he doesn’t realize I built this wall of mine brick by brick and it’s not that easy
for me to just knock it down, no matter how much I craved his arms last night.
I at least was open enough to send him a text to let him know I was going to Boulder for a run. I was rewarded with a curt
thumbs-up emoji. Like I’m a roommate touching base, not the woman he poured his heart out to less than twenty-four hours ago.
I frown when I park in front of the cabin and notice Luke’s truck isn’t parked where it usually is. I check my phone and don’t see a text from him, so I can’t help but wonder where he went. As I hop out of the vehicle, I glance down the hill and see Dakota pacing on her front porch.
“Everything okay?” I call out as I walk toward her.
She shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just hate these calls.”
“What calls?” I ask as I reach the base of her steps.
“The fire department calls.” She shakes out her arms and runs her hands through her hair, her feet loud on the wooden deck.
“They don’t come very often, but when they do, I can’t sit down until Calder comes back home. And this one sounded bad—a barn
fire with these kinds of winds? My mind is a dark place right now.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe, but manage to choak out, “Luke?”
“Did he not tell you?” Dakota pauses her pacing and looks at me with a frown.
Tears fill my eyes instantly. I don’t even know they’re coming, they just flood my vision, completely blinding me.
“Oh shit.” Dakota rushes down the steps and opens her arms to wrap me in a hug, but I jerk back.
“It’s fine.” I hold my hand up to stop her from approaching again. “I just maybe missed the call.”
But I know I didn’t.
No missed calls. No texts. No nothing. My husband went out for an emergency fire call and never told me. I guess Luke is pretty
good at putting walls up as well.
“Don’t worry, Addison. Luke is going to be fine.”
“I’m not worried.” I wince and look down the mountain, like I’ll be able to spot where the call is, but of course, I see nothing.
Just the sleepy little community of Jamestown taunting me with its beauty when all that’s going on in my mind is chaos.
“I’ll see you later, Dakota.” I turn and begin marching back up the hill.
“I’ll text you if I hear from Calder,” she calls after me.
“Don’t bother!” I pick up pace, taking off into a run toward the cabin. Only I don’t stop at the cabin, I keep going, choosing
to jog the path that I’ve jogged countless times now even though I’ve already run three miles today.
The trail winds behind the three cabins that Luke pointed out to me shortly after I moved in. Apparently, Calder maintains
the path so he can take his cat for walks year-round. Calder, the brother who knows how to inform his partner when he’s going
on a life-threatening call. They’re not even married, and Dakota gets more information than I do.
Must be nice.
Rage simmers in my veins, the cold air shredding my lungs as fresh snow falls in fat, puffy flakes that soak my Carhartt coat.
I push myself farther and farther up the mountain, going deeper into the forest than I have in all the other times I’ve run
back here.
All too quickly, I run out of trail and begin trenching through the sometimes-knee-deep snow. My ankles freeze as my sneakers
get soaked with each passing step, but eventually I can’t feel them, which is nice. I don’t want to feel anything. I especially
don’t want to feel this ache I have in my chest over the idea that Luke . . . the man I care about could not come home tonight.
He might not come home because he could die in that fucking fire, and I don’t even know if I’m listed as his emergency contact
to get the call.
Or . . . or! He might not come home by choice. He might choose to abandon me just like my own mother did.
“Hey, pumpkin. How’s my baby girl today?” my mom asks from her spot at our kitchen table.
I stare at her for a moment to see what kind of mood she’s in.
She’s been really tired lately because she’s been out late so many nights.
I heard her come home after midnight last night and Dad got mad ’cause she woke him up.
If she’s in one of her cranky moods, then I try to stay far far away from her usually. Maybe today she’s better.
“I’m fine, but Aaron ruined my school project about the ocean, and I was nearly finished,” I groan. I like my little brother,
most of the time, but days like today he really annoys me.
“That’s family for you. Sometimes the ones we love the most disappoint us the most.” She gives me one of her big hugs, the
ones that always make me feel better.
God, I haven’t thought about that conversation for years. Is that why this is upsetting me so much? Because Luke might choose
that this is just too hard after all, that I’m not worth sticking around for? Just like my mom? Because God knows sometimes
the ones we love the most can still manage to leave us without a backward glance and without a final hug goodbye.
Sometimes the ones we love the most disappoint us the most.
And would that crush me if Luke didn’t come home because I love him? I mean, I know I love him like a friend. But do I love him, love him? That thought stops me dead in my tracks and a sob rips up my throat as I hold my stomach and try not to be
sick.
Do you want our marriage to be real?
The fact that you even have to ask just proves how big of a fucking wall you still have up between us.
I fall to my knees in the snow, my hands burning in the powder as my face boils, steam billowing off me as I pant, fighting
to catch my breath.
I wipe at the hot tears pouring out of me. I don’t want Luke to be like my mom. I don’t want Luke to be like my brother. I
need Luke. I need him here, with me. I need him to call me. I need to stop pushing him away enough to let him call me. I have
to be his emergency contact. He’s been mine for years.
But I never even told him that.
I just did it without having the conversation with him, because I didn’t want to dig into what it meant when I did it.
It meant that he matters to me. He is my lifeline, my comfort, my home.
Somehow, he became irreplaceable to me, and now I’m at risk of losing him and it’s too late for me to pull back to protect myself from this pain.
I unsteadily stand to my feet, my fleece-lined leggings soaked as a clamminess settles over me. Sweat and snow damp my skin
as I glance around and struggle to find my bearings. I squint down into the bright white snow to use my footsteps to follow
my path back to the trail. Back to home. I need to go home.
I’ve loved running back here. I haven’t done it since it started snowing and I’ve missed the peace and serenity I feel when
I’m out here in the middle of nowhere. Away from the urban sprawl of Boulder. Away from the voices in my head that don’t shut
up at night. But right now, this mountain isn’t quieting anything in my mind.
Only Luke can do that.
He is my quiet. My calm. My mountain.
It’s dark by the time I spot the cabin, and my face is swollen and numb, most likely covered in frozen tears and snot as I
round the house, desperate to get out of these soggy shoes. I’m mentally preparing for how painful that hot shower is going
to be when a gruff voice thunders, “Where the fuck have you been?”
I look up and see Luke. My Luke. He’s standing on our front porch. Our front porch, wearing a white T-shirt covered in soot and firemen pants with reflective lines shining in the dark and suspenders
up over his shoulders. The yellow porch light casts him in a silhouette as he stomps down the steps toward me, his face positively
murderous when he steps out enough for me to see it.
“I’ve been calling you nonstop for an hour, ever since Dakota called to tell me you were upset.”
I pull my phone out of my leggings pocket to see that it’s dead and wet. “I didn’t know my phone died. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” he huffs out a laugh, his face a strange mix of sad and happy. “Jesus Christ. I’ve been worried sick and all you
can say is sorry?”
“You’re one to talk,” I yell back, now that I know he’s not fucking dead in a fiery barn. “I had to find out from Dakota that
you got called away to a fire.”
His jaw goes taut as he stares back at me, saying nothing.
“A fire, Luke!” My eyes fill with tears again and I swipe at them, annoyed that I still have any tears left to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he says, noticing my obvious pain. “I was . . . angry.”
“Angry.” I shake my head and smile through my tears as pain bubbles up to the surface and erupts inside of me like a volcano.
“I told you we needed to be good through this arrangement, Fletcher.”
“I know that.”
“I told you I couldn’t lose you.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” I cry, my voice fraught with devastation. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” he growls back, his face twisted in pain as his eyes score over my face.
I inhale a sharp breath and move closer to him, stabbing my finger into his chest. “Fact or fiction, Fletcher. You want me.
Not as a friend but as something more.”
Luke exhales heavily, his face long and sad as he holds his hands out in surrender. “Fact.”
I nod slowly. “Now ask me.”
“Roe, I can’t—”
“Shut up and ask me.”
His Adam’s apple slides down his throat before he says, “Fact or fiction. You . . . want me.”
I lick my lips, my chin quivering with fear because the answer to this feels big.
Possibly bigger than I’m ready to admit, but I have to give him something.
And I know as soon as I answer this question, we will never be the same.
We can never go back to being just friends.
But I’m not sure there’s any going back at this point anyways. I’m too far gone.
“It’s a fact, Luke. It was a fact before everything that happened last night and it’s a fact after. I want you. As more than
a friend.”
His face turns fierce as he processes my words, having the ridiculous ability to look shocked. How could he not know? How
is it not painfully obvious that I’m obsessed with this man?
In a flash, he eliminates the space between us and scoops me up into his arms. My feet dangle off the ground as he presses
his forehead to mine, breathing me in as I breathe him in. He smells like smoke and sweat and musky clothes, but I love it.
I want to wrap myself in this scent and remember this moment forever.
“Tell me again,” he urges, his arms bound tight around my waist as he holds me to him. “Tell me you want me.”
I shudder and grip his neck as I say, “I want you.”
He groans, a guttural noise that sounds inhuman. “It’s about fucking time.” And then he drops me to my feet and his lips are
on me, desperate and frenzied. His tongue urgent and unrelenting. My body melts into his as my frozen limbs thaw with every
suck, nip, and lick. I fork my fingers through his hair, pulling him in as I arch into his kiss until a thought strikes me
and our lips yank part with a hard shove to his chest.
“The next time you leave for a fire without telling me, I will kill you, Luke Fletcher. Do you hear me?” I pound my fist on
his chest. “I’m your wife and you have to tell me where you’re going.”
“Okay,” he replies with a drunken-looking smile while trying to pull me back in.
“I’m serious.” I press my finger into his chest, not giving in quite yet. “You’re my emergency contact and I better damn well be yours.”
He pulls back and smirks at me like I’m some adorable puppy who needs a cuddle. “Okay, babe.”
I swallow the knot in my throat, my brows still knit firmly together. “Okay.”
He steps toward me again, cautiously, his eyebrows arched like he’s waiting for me to wail on him one more time. “Okay?” he
asks, as his hand snakes around my waist.
I nod. “Okay.”
He dips down and brushes his lips softly over mine as he murmurs, “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat, feeling dizzy as I pull him closer, desperate to feel right again.
“Okay,” he whispers one more time, and then my equilibrium is thwarted as my feet come out from under me because my husband
has lifted me up to carry me over the threshold . . . into our home.
Well, okay.