Chapter 15 #3
The silence returned, but it was tense. Larkin reached out slowly and took the ring from me.
I had hoped for her to put it on. But as she closed her palm around it, the moment was lost to me.
Still, it was a win for her to take it rather than throwing it back in my face. I wasn’t even sure she would do this.
I opened my mouth to ask her what she planned to do with it.
Would she leave it on a dresser? Would she drop it in a drawer in her office, forgotten about until another day when she felt it in her pocket and remembered it wasn’t her responsibility.
Instead of voicing my questions, Larkin put her hand on my knee, a familiar comfort.
It wasn’t the full contact I wanted, but I didn’t move away from it.
“Ephraim,” she spoke my name back to me, the quiet returning to us, and she laid her head down on my shoulder.
I knew better than to break this silence, even if my mind was racing with a million questions.
Larkin had always been better at communicating without words than I had.
So I waited for the rest of her to appear, to tell me what it was that was on her mind.
She sat like this for a long time, until my arm had gone numb beneath her and I could feel my foot starting to ache from staying in the same position.
I wasn’t going to complain. If I could sit like this for an hour, I would, just to prove her wrong that I couldn’t wait patiently anymore.
It wasn’t until she shifted, pulling away slightly and reaching across to my other hand.
It was resting beside me, but she took it in hers, her thumb rubbing over my knuckles.
“I don’t want it to feel like I’m giving you an opening to go back to how things were. You can’t go home and act like everything will just fall back in line. Because it won’t, and it shouldn’t, and we deserve better than what we had.”
It was fair. I knew she wasn’t going to go back, and I wouldn’t expect her to. This was about me getting myself on the same page as she was, not me pulling her into my world again. I nodded, acknowledging her words, even though it felt like she was throwing cold water over us. It was too soon.
But she didn’t pull away, even as the moment between us grew cooler.
Instead, she turned her face up and pressed the softest kiss to my cheek.
It was so delicate, it felt like a wish against my skin, a memory that made me want to reach for more, but I restrained myself.
This wasn’t a kiss good night kind of moment.
It wasn’t the kind that led us toward more.
This was an apology from her, to show that there were still some feelings for me in her, but nothing had changed about her plans for the immediate future.
I had a feeling this was her way of saying she forgave me for all the ways I had hurt her, and there was nothing left between us now to forgive.
The moment passed and she was standing up, reaching her hand out to me.
I took it, allowing her to help me to my feet.
She didn’t pull away when I stood, even as I towered over her, her hand still gripping mine.
I searched her face, wishing I had a fraction of her ability to communicate without words.
“You don’t have to say anything right now.
But I hope you will tell me when you’re ready. ”
She nodded, finally slipping her fingers from mine. “I’ll tell you when you are ready to hear it.” She didn’t leave room for argument, but there was nothing to argue with.
“I’ll wait. Until then, I’m here.”
She smiled then, her entire expression lighting up in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time. “Good. The stalls don’t clean themselves.”
We walked toward her office together. She opened the door, her eyes drifting across her desk with all its paperwork.
My gaze went there too, remembering the papers I had ripped up and thrown away in this same office.
The reminder was there, of how I had changed my tactics since that first attempt to pull Larkin back into our lives.
She moved past her desk and stepped outside into the cool air.
I followed, walking next to her in the empty yard, listening to the familiar sounds of horses settling down for the night.
She didn’t invite me to dinner, and I didn’t offer. But she did tell me goodbye. “See you tomorrow, Ephraim.”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” I smiled. Because even if everything else was still in limbo, tomorrow was one more day I would get to spend here. That felt like everything and a little bit of nothing all at the same time.
As Larkin disappeared from my line of sight and the path back to my SUV loomed before me, I realized I had no desire to be on it.
I wanted to be in that barn, even if my presence didn’t do much for the tasks that were needed.
I could sit there all evening and listen to horses moving around in their stalls.
It was exactly where I wanted to be. And for once in my life, the decision I had was incredibly easy to make, even if I had no idea where it was going to take me tomorrow.
All I knew was that there was work here to do, and I was more than willing to get to it.