Chapter Eighteen #2
She’d spent the last year convinced I resented her.
I’d spent the last year convinced she resented me.
It built a wall between us, and I regretted chickening out at every opportunity to knock it down.
I should’ve forced that talk a long time ago.
I should’ve done a lot of things. But I was beginning to understand the grace everyone told me to award myself: Grief is fickle, overwhelming, rude, uncomfortable, and, frankly, impossible.
We both lost our dad, we both lost the lives we’d grown comfortable in, and we had to start fresh.
With a fourteen-year-old to take care of, I’d done my best. But now that Phoebe and I had spilled our guts, the world felt easier to navigate.
Phoebe didn’t want to be anywhere else. She didn’t resent me.
She didn’t need me to be perfect, she just needed me to be open and honest. I’d tried so hard to hide my pain, convinced it was a weakness.
But Phoebe breaking down on the sidewalk was a showcase of bravery.
If she could pluck up the courage to tell me the truth, so could I. I’d do better.
When we got back to the motel, Dex was sitting on the edge of his pristinely made bed, his hair damp from a shower, elbows on his knees as he typed something into his phone. He glanced up, immediately clocking the signs of our breakdown.
“Hey,” he said, training his face into that neutral expression. Phoebe rolled over the bed we’d slept in, offering the box of baked goods.
“We got stuff!” She opened it, rifling through the treats, and Dex looked to me.
His eyes were full of what felt like the same fondness that was pulsing through my veins.
I sent him a small smile and sat next to Phoebe.
“We tried going to this Italian bakery to get your brioche, but it didn’t exist. So, we settled.
Didn’t know what you’d want, so we got pretty much everything. ”
“Thanks.” He plucked a flaky cinnamon roll from the box. “I appreciate the effort.”
“It was so much effort,” Phoebe said and housed a cheese Danish in two bites. Hopping to her feet, she let out a garbled “Shower” and disappeared into the bathroom.
Dex’s eyes returned to me. He hadn’t taken a bite.
“You hate cinnamon rolls, don’t you?” I said.
His mouth quirked on one side. “I’ll eat it.”
“Of course you will.” Because my sister had gotten it for him, the same way he wore the green sunglasses she got him at the gas station. He knew that when Phoebe took the time to do something for someone, it mattered.
“Everything okay?” he asked, lowering his voice even as the shower squeaked on in the bathroom.
I nodded, fingers toying with the hem of my skirt. “Yeah. I took your advice, actually, and talked to Phoebe.”
“How’d that go?”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
He dropped his gaze to the cinnamon roll in his hand. “Good. That’s good, Vi.”
“I think we’re gonna be okay,” I whispered.
He met my eyes, allowing a full smile to light up his face like the sun painting the branches of trees in the woods.
The corners of his eyes wrinkled with the beginnings of crow’s-feet, a slight indent dug into one cheek that couldn’t quite be considered a dimple, and his front teeth sported the teensiest space between them.
I’d once thought he was intimidatingly handsome, but seeing him relaxed and maybe just a little bit happy, he was the most beautiful man in the world.
“I always knew that,” he said. I shut my eyes, the warmth of this statement swallowing me whole.
My conversation with Phoebe had opened my eyes to how withdrawn I’d become with everyone in my life, even Arden, who’d practically been fused to my side since freshman year of college.
I didn’t want to be that way. I wanted to say what I meant, feel what I felt, and stop letting the fear of reaction influence my words.
I couldn’t hold in the truth just because it would tug at Arden’s concern, or let Phoebe talk back because she’d hate me if I grounded her, and I wouldn’t sit here with Dex and pretend whatever happened between us didn’t impact me at all.
“You have to stop saying things that make me want to kiss you,” I said softly.
“Considering how long I’ve wanted to kiss you…” he said. “This entire time—Fuck, Vi—it’s not something I can just turn off.”
I swallowed hard. “But you said—”
“I know what I said. I meant it.”
“You sure about that?”
He let out a sound, half laugh, half pure exasperation. “Obviously not.”
I plucked the cinnamon roll out of his grasp and took a bite. He watched me, his expression full of conflict.
“I didn’t expect this to happen,” he added, lowering his voice. “Given…”
I flinched away, the unspoken end of that sentence landing heavier than the silence: Given we’re on our way to the love of my life. I wanted him in a way that physically ached, but I wouldn’t stand in the way of Dex and Catalina’s happily ever after. As long as that was what they wanted.
My brain kept reaching for assurance that this thing between us was real.
It felt real when his eyes were on me. When I said something so ridiculous that it dragged a full-bodied laugh out of him.
When he let himself flirt with me and then let it slip into the most unabashedly romantic words anyone had ever said to me.
I wanted to believe in him, but how could I when we were still on our way to the woman he’d said he would love forever?
“Maybe we just… keep our distance,” I said.
He looked away. “Maybe.”
“It’s not long until Oregon. Once you see Catalina, things will be clearer, I bet.”
His eyes snapped to me. “What does she have to do with this?”
“Um.” I blinked. “Everything?”
He dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “Fuck. Okay. Violet, I have to tell you something.”
My stomach dropped. “Okay?” I said and put the cinnamon roll in the box to free up my hands.
When Dex looked at me, there was something so hauntingly familiar in his expression, I gasped out loud.
“Oh my god. She’s dead. She’s dead, isn’t she?
That’s why you said giving her the letter was pointless. ”
“What?” He scowled. “No. Cat’s not… No.”
I placed my hand over my racing heart. “Okay, Jesus. What was I supposed to think? You look like someone died. What is happening here?”
“This has always been about closure,” he said.
“I needed this letter gone. Cat deserves it—she deserves that closure. That’s the point.
I needed it done so we could both move on with our lives.
” He swallowed, eyes roving my face. “I’m not about to tell you what you deserve.
You can decide that on your own. But I’m not worth much of anything with this hanging over my head.
I wanted it done before I let myself feel anything for you.
Vi, I like you,” he said, and my next breath snagged in my throat.
“I like being around you—and I don’t like being around anyone anymore. ”
Our knees brushed. I pressed in harder, a reminder I felt the same way, that he already knew.
“This means something to me,” he said earnestly.
Warmth radiated in my chest, my whole body awash with relief.
He had no intention of reconciling with Catalina.
He wanted me. “At this point, I can take or leave the closure. I could turn around and go back to Boston and be okay with that, as long as you were there and you were looking at me like this. Meeting you and meeting Phoebe… that’s what made this trip worth anything to me. ”
I stood, needing to be closer. He opened his knees for me, I stepped between them, my hands brushing over his shoulders, his hands finding my hips.
I wanted to kiss him—the elevator felt like so long ago, and now we could relish, unhurried and real—but he pressed his face into my stomach, his arms looping around to hold me, and oh, this was better.
To be held by him. To let the electricity simmer in a warm glow.
To inhale the crisp scent of his soap, to feel his hot breath through my T-shirt, to wrap him up in my arms and bury my face in his hair.
I could so easily fall in love with him. I was halfway there.
When Phoebe emerged from the bathroom, Dex and I had returned to our respective beds and finished the cinnamon roll. She sat beside me and held up her hands.
“So, hear me out.”
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“I think we should take a detour,” she continued, shifting her focus to Dex. He regarded her impassively. “Utah’s close, right?”
“Utah?” I raised my eyebrows. “What’s in Utah?”
“There’s this wildlife sanctuary for exotic animals and you can meet elephants and giraffes.”
Immediately, I turned to Dex and said, “We should go to Utah.”
Phoebe held out her fist and I bumped it. Dex looked between us, unamused. “That’s a pretty big detour.”
“A worthwhile detour.” She shot him a charming grin. “Come on, Dex. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it’s so much better than Yogi.”
“You picked Yogi,” he reminded her. “You want to add another two days to the trip?”
Phoebe glanced at me, her confidence slipping. But that number didn’t scare me. I looked at Dex, thinking of spending two more days wrapped around him, and when he looked at me, I knew he was thinking the same thing.
“Fine,” he said. “But we’re listening to one of my playlists on the way.”