Chapter 50 Maya
MAYA
The fire in the pit crackled and spat, sending tiny sparks up into the dark above the lake. Cassidy and Harle’s cabin was one of my favorite places on earth.
On nights like this, with the air cool enough to justify a blanket and the sky wide open, the rest of the world quietly switched off.
Hannah had claimed the chair closest to the fire, legs already tucked under her, while Poppy and I had the two Adirondacks on the other side. Annie had folded herself into the corner of the daybed next to Cassidy.
Harle appeared through the back door with a fresh bottle of wine in one hand and a platter in the other. He set both on the low table between our chairs, dropped a kiss on the top of Cassidy’s head, and headed back inside.
“Where are you going?” Cassidy called after him.
“Animals need feeding.” The screen door slid shut behind him.
Cassidy watched him go with a soft smile. They were too cute for words. Usually I loved watching it. Tonight it made my heart hurt.
“So.” Hannah fixed me with a look. “How are we doing?”
I took a sip of wine and stared out at the lake.
“I honestly don’t know.”
Poppy’s eyes clouded with concern. “Okay, well, that’s not a great start. What’s going on?”
I pulled the blanket higher over my legs, trying to figure out where to begin. “He’s being weird.”
“Weird how?” Cassidy asked.
“Like... present but absent. He’s there, physically, and he’s affectionate, and the sex is still.
..” I waved my hand vaguely and Poppy’s eyebrows lifted.
“But then he’ll disappear for two or three hours and when I ask where he’s been, I get this vague, nothing answer.
Running errands. Catching up with Dan. Stuff like that. ”
“Is he actually catching up with Dan?” Annie asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t asked Dan because that would make me the girlfriend who checks up on him, and I refuse to be that person.”
Hannah snorted. “You’re not checking up on him. You’re gathering intelligence. Completely different thing.”
I ignored her. “And the phone thing is driving me insane. The other night we were on the couch and his phone buzzed. He picked it up, read whatever it was, and locked the screen so fast I didn’t even see the notification.
And then he just... put it face down on the coffee table and kissed my temple like nothing happened. ”
The fire popped. Poppy reached for the wine bottle and topped up my glass without asking.
“And then yesterday morning he was making coffee. I came up behind him and put my arms around him. He turned around and just held me. For ages. His face in my hair, his arms so tight around me I could barely breathe.” Oh god, now there was a lump in my throat so thick I could barely talk.
I swallowed some wine, dragged in air, and continued.
“And then ten minutes later he grabbed his keys and said he’d be gone for the afternoon. I don’t know where he went.”
The few beats of silence that followed were heavy.
“So he’s being secretive,” Cassidy said slowly. “But also more affectionate than usual.”
“Yes.”
“That’s... confusing.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Annie shifted on the daybed, pulling her sleeves over her hands the way she always did when she debated speaking up.
“What?” I asked.
“It might be nothing.”
“Annie.”
She blew out a breath. “He came into the library a few days back.” Annie spoke carefully, like she was placing each word down one at a time. “He was there for a good long while.”
Hannah sat up straighter. “The library? What for?”
“I don’t know. I offered to help, but he said he was fine.”
“Okay, this is weird, right?” Hannah looked around the group like she was polling a jury. “What, is he researching relocation guides? Best cities for brooding ex-military men with commitment issues?”
“Hannah,” Poppy said.
“I’m just saying. If the man is sitting in a library for that long, he’s looking something up. And if he’s not telling Maya about it, that’s not great.”
“Maybe he’s job hunting,” Cassidy offered. “Some people prefer to do that kind of thing on a proper computer.”
“At a library? In Esperance?” Hannah was incredulous. “Just use your phone like a normal person.”
“Or maybe he’s looking at real estate listings,” Poppy said quietly, and then immediately looked like she wished she hadn’t.
The fire popped again. My stomach twisted.
“I don’t think it was any of that.” Annie’s voice cut through the speculation. “He was in the local history section. Land records, census archives, old Esperance family files. That kind of thing.”
The guessing stopped dead.
“Land records? What the fuck?” Hannah’s baffled expression matched my own.
Annie shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think much of it at the time. But then you said he’s been disappearing and being secretive. I thought maybe it was relevant.”
“Why would Nate be looking at old family records?” Poppy asked, her brow creased.
Nobody had an answer for that. The four of them exchanged glances. I sat very still, my brain cycling through explanations that might make sense and coming up empty.
“It doesn’t track with job hunting,” Cassidy said. “You don’t need census records for that.”
“And you don’t need them to look for apartments in Portland, either,” Hannah added.
“Maybe he’s just interested in local history?” Poppy offered. “All of a sudden. In a completely out of character way?”
“Maybe.” I turned my glass slowly between my hands. “But why wouldn’t he just tell me that?”
The question hung in the air between us and the fire answered with a long, slow pop that sent sparks scattering toward the water.
Poppy reached over and squeezed my knee. “There could be a perfectly good explanation, Maya. You know that, right? He might just be working through something on his own. He’s allowed to have things that are his.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“And the affection is a good sign,” Cassidy added. “A man who’s pulling away doesn’t hold you like that.”
I stared down into my wine glass. “Maybe.”
But Cassidy didn’t know Nate the way I did.
She didn’t know his history. Or his patterns.
How he’d gone quiet before he disappeared the first time, at twenty-two, when he saw me naked and couldn’t handle what it meant.
How he’d kissed me on the ridge trail and then ghosted me for two days.
How he’d driven me home after Jasper’s party in a silence so complete it felt like a wall going up between us, brick by brick.
Nate didn’t pull away because he stopped caring. He pulled away because he cared too much and couldn’t figure out what to do with it. And every single time, the pulling away had ended the same way.
He left.
The library, the phone calls, the disappearing for hours with no explanation. The way he held me too tight and kissed me too soft, like he was memorizing the feel of me.
All of it added up to one devastating conclusion.
Hannah paused, her glass halfway to her mouth. Whatever she saw on my face made her set it down without drinking.
“Maya.”
“I think he’s getting ready to go.” My voice broke. “I think he’s tying up loose ends, and he hasn’t figured out how to tell me yet.”
Nobody argued. The fire burned low. The lake sat black and still beyond the trees. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and let the ache settle in. Like a storm system I’d been watching roll in for weeks that had finally arrived.
It was the absolute exhaustion of realizing I’d already lost the war against myself. I’d spent so much time keeping my guard up in case he bolted, that I hadn’t even noticed when he became the center of everything.
He hadn’t just slipped past my defenses. He’d completely demolished them.
There was no denying it anymore. I was madly in love with Nate. And I wasn’t sure I could survive him leaving.