29. Lacie
LACIE
I wished I’d never come. To Harper’s Inn. To the Event Center.
I wished I could fade away on the spot.
The desire was irrational; I knew that much. The Event Center was just as beautiful, rustic, and immaculate as my clients had claimed. But I was unsettled. Tired.
An empty feeling snarled in the pit of my stomach, and though the chef had mentioned refreshments, I wasn’t sure I could enjoy any of them.
On top of that, my chest ached just as much as my hurt ankle.
But the sad, throbbing desire welling inside of me wasn’t for a wedding here with Wyatt.
It was for a life with Jared Kingston.
With Jared? A wedding here would be sublime.
Our moms would love this place. I didn’t have to go inside to picture the guests, the burlap touches, the white and off-white flowers instead of snow. Everything flooded into my mind with precise perfection, the way it always did when I planned an event.
But this one could never be. Not when Jared could barely look at me.
The rest of the guests followed Junie along a path leading away from the barn where the horses were hitched to rest and recuperate. My gaze was drawn upward—I couldn’t help it.
The stars created such a dazzle of pinpointed light. I’d never noticed them glitter like this from a lower vantage point.
Living in the city didn’t help, either. I rarely got an uninterrupted view of the sky like this anymore.
Junie and a few others trotted toward the fire pit from the barn with their arms full of chopped wood. They placed their fodder in the center of the fire pit, and soon, orange flames took to the wood and frolicked in the center of the benches.
Guests grouped in close, hands outstretched to catch some of the fire’s warmth, talking and laughing.
I joined them as well, holding my hands out and appreciating every angle of the heat. Swarms of smoky air wafted in my direction with a change in the wind, making me cough.
“And then there was more light,” Junie called out once the fire really gained momentum.
Several people laughed and clapped, and she exchanged a merry glance with the handsome chef, who’d emerged from the Event Center with Jared at his side.
In his hands, Jared held two steaming Styrofoam cups, and while Mason branched off to where Junie stood, Jared headed my direction.
I should be used to him by now. I shouldn’t react as though his smoky eyes pinned on me held the power to unravel me with a single glance.
“Peace offering,” he said, giving me a smoky look.
He shouldn’t be allowed to look so good. Not now. Not with everything all topsy turvy.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the cup.
Heat seeped through my gloves. Loving the warmth on my fingers, I took a sip. Maybe the cocoa could give me some energy or break me from this stupid glumness.
Piping hot liquid burned my tongue instead. I released a squeak. My tongue was on fire.
“You okay?” Jared said, taking a sip of his own.
“I’ll just let it cool a bit.”
“Gather round, gather round,” Junie called. “Story time is about to begin. The Center is open, and Mason Devries and his team have prepared an amazing spread of the best cinnamon rolls you’ve ever tasted, along with a hot chocolate bar and other incredible treats. Feel free to go in at any time, warm up, whatever. Those of you who are ready, come situate yourselves!”
Guests chattered excitedly. Some headed to the Event Center. Others returned with plates of gooey, iced cinnamon rolls and cups of steaming cocoa. They sat on the benches surrounding the brilliant, orange flames.
Jared gestured for me to lead the way, but I hesitated. I was no longer sure about hearing the stories I’d been so looking forward to. Stories about the radio’s origin, about its effects when it had first played for others here.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
But the mountain air was freezing, and everything around them was iced with white frosting. And admittedly, my curiosity won out.
I meandered toward an opening on the benches and sank down, saving enough space for Jared to join me.
Junie blew air on her mittened hands and then began.
“Some of you may know that the Harpers have lived here on this mountainside for over a hundred years. But have you heard of the night Santa Claus himself stopped by for a visit?”
Santa Claus. I suppressed a scoff. I was tired of hearing about Santa Claus and his radio.
There was a plaque at the inn explaining the story. It was also plastered all over the Harper’s Inn website. Yet, Junie proceeded as though this were staged, as though she were under the impression few knew the tale.
“Tell us the story, Junie!” someone responded, and several others added encouraging cheers.
I exchanged a look with Jared and shrugged. It sounded as though these people were used to the narrative but wanted to hear it told again. I couldn’t give in to the enthusiasm buzzing from the surrounding crowd.
To these people, it was just a story. But for Jared and me?
The radio’s magic was playing with our lives, something it had no business doing.
Regardless, I sat and listened as Junie told the story of her grandfather, Benjamin Harper. Of Santa Claus stopping by his house and apologizing for forgetting to bring him any presents. Of Santa offering a radio of his own as penance for the slip- up.
“Benjamin’s parents, my great-grandparents, placed the radio in the very spot it sits today. On the table in their living room. And the most incredible things began to happen.
“At least twenty weddings took place that first year,” Junie said. “Every guest who came into the homestead, who heard the radio play, found that romance sparked in the unlikeliest of places.”
“Too bad the radio makes mistakes,” Jared muttered.
Unwarranted, thoughts pressed into my mind.
Tia thought there was more going on between Jared and me. Countless others had mentioned the same thing. Women at work had asked me why I wasn’t dating him.
My response had always been the same:
“We’re just friends.”
Just friends.
Jared and I had had plenty of interactions that had definitely not been just-friends instances. Like when he’d held me during tae kwon do moves, and I hadn’t wanted him to let me go.
Like the time we’d gone out to a movie, and he’d held me because I’d been cold.
Like the time during our drama class where a little practice kiss had turned into a whole lot more.
A voice trailed itself across the chilly wind. Or maybe it was a thought in my head, but either way, it was a realization.
I bolted to my feet, startling several guests around us.
“Sorry,” I said, apologizing as I stepped over them toward the end of the bench.
I couldn’t sit any longer, so I tromped to the Event Center, climbed its porch steps, and ventured through the heavy doors. Its warmth was instantaneous. That warmth shrouded me like a blanket, that warmth and the brilliant yellow light from the antler light fixture overhead didn’t quell the shaking that had taken over.
The ceiling vaulted high overhead, and a warm fire blazed in the central fireplace. The second level was a balcony surrounding the floor where they stood below. I imagined guests could lean over its log railing and peruse the people below like animals in a zoo.
“What’s up?” Jared said from behind me.
My eyes closed, and a smile spread across my face. I should have known he would follow me.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and turned to face him. “It’s not a rebound.”
“What isn’t?”
“This.” I gestured across the space between us, pointing from my chest to his and back again.
Saying the words released something inside of me. Something that made me almost want to laugh.
This wasn’t a rebound. Whether Santa’s radio made a mistake or not, the truth was, there had always been more than just friendship going on between us.
I never wanted to take it there because I hadn’t seen it. Not until the truth was rammed right in front of me.
But Jared didn’t want that truth. He wanted Tia.
Why else had he pushed me away?
“You’re the first person I can come to when I’m having a terrible day,” I said, letting all the thoughts gush out of me like a word waterfall, “and you’ll chew out all the people who stepped on my toes. And you know exactly the right things to say to help me feel better again.
“You’re the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning. You’re the first person I text the instant I see a funny meme or hear a joke. And those pictures—and last night—and when you kissed me?—”
He didn’t say anything. Just kept his attention on me, listening.
I placed my hands on each opposite elbow and kept right on going. “I just have this awful, lurching feeling that if I lose you, if I let you let me go, I’ll never find anyone like you again.
“I want you every day. I want to keep on texting when something is funny, or when I’m feeling sad.
“I want you to be the one who has my missing phone charge cord, I want you to be the one I wake up to every morning—not sleeping in a chair across the room with a creaky back, but with me. I want to see pictures of us together every time I look on social media. Does that sound like a rebound to you?”
Jared’s face was far too serious. A hardness lingered behind his eyes, a look I didn’t like one bit.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said.
Tell me you feel the same! I wanted to shout. That no matter what reality we were in, he wanted me.
But he wouldn’t. He’d said he loved me. But he’d said he wanted things to go back to normal.
“I know but—” There was so much I wanted to hear.
Say you love me again. Say you want us to stay married when this is over. Say you want to kiss me again like you did.
He stepped toward me, and my heart was trapped in my throat. I got lost in his eyes, my heart pounding, begging, hoping.
“Jared. You love me.”
“I do.”
“That is the buttiest, but-coming statement.”
“But.” Humor was in his smile, but sadness was in his eyes.
I closed my eyes and turned my head away. “Don’t finish that. I told you, I don’t think this is a rebound for me. I’d never use you like that because I care for you, and I’ve felt that way for a long time.
“I don’t even want to hear why your love for me, why our history and our twined lives isn’t enough.”
“That’s not it at all.”
“Is Tia really that amazing? Is she everything you dream of? Are pictures of the two of you together all you want to see? Is her kiss the one you want to have when you come home from work every day?”
Jared scowled. His thoughts were mulling, but he said nothing, so I went on.
“I’m glad Wyatt ended things with me when he did before I made the biggest mistake of my life. I think I was so set on the ‘image’ of it all, of having the perfect wedding, that I mistook my excitement for the event as love. I would have realized my mistake too late to do anything about it.”
“That’s not true,” Jared said. “He broke your heart.”
“He broke something, but it wasn’t my heart. Do you want to know what I’ve been sad about? That the project I had was snuffed. Financial plans. Which of us would cook meals. My wedding decorations. Does that sound very romantic to you?”
“Those are practical things.”
I slashed a hand through the air. “They’re things a couple should take into consideration, but it’s not what a marriage should be built on, Jare,” I said. “I was more upset about not getting a wedding than about losing who I was marrying. I didn’t think anything about losing a soulmate.”
Wyatt was never that for me.
My best friend. The person I trusted the most, the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Because those things applied to someone else.
“I thought I could still have you and him at the same time, which sounds so messed up, I know. It wasn’t having you in the same way I want you now, but you know what I mean. I wasn’t willing to let you go just because I was engaged to him.
“What would have happened if I called you for help with something when Wyatt was my husband? How would that have even worked?
“One of these days, you’ll find yourself married to Tia and thinking about me, wishing things were different. Now is the time to make all the mistakes we can and to avoid as many as we can, too. Because once you say, ‘I do,’ there’s no going back.”
“Technically…”
“You know what I mean.”
He rested his hands on my shoulders. I was warmed by the touch, and hope swelled so big I could swallow it.
“I love what you’re saying,” he said, “and I want to believe you.”
A little scoff escaped my open mouth. “You don’t believe me?”
How could I say it any other way? Couldn’t he see the earnest truth in my eyes? Couldn’t he read it in my voice?
He knew me—better than anyone else did.
He lowered his hands and peered toward the front windows behind him. A view of the bonfire and the gathered guests was visible.
“I mean, this situation is still what it is. Confusing.”
“Jare.”
“I still think we need to take it easy. To take this slow before we do something we’ll both regret. So for now, I’m your friend, Lacie. I’ll always be your friend.”
He gave an apologetic smile and then made his way toward the exit. Back to the bonfire.
It felt as if he’d detached my heart and taken it with him.
What the heck? How could he tell me he would always be me friend? Hadn’t we both agreed we could never go back to being just friends after this?
That told me enough. Once we went home and things went back to normal, I was going to lose him.
I’d have to back away, just as I’d promised I would.