Chapter 40 Sadie #2
Uchi looks completely unassuming from the outside: at a glance, it’s just a renovated old house with bright red paint and a rock garden off to the side.
The rock garden is simply decorated with black patio furniture, the occasional green plant, and twinkling globe lights strung overhead—the perfect place to sip sake and nosh on edamame while waiting for a table.
We don’t have to wait tonight, though; whatever strings Jonathan managed to pull get us seated right away.
It’s much fancier on the inside than you might expect, but cozy, too, with its warm wooden tables and rich red floral wallpaper. The atmosphere is lively, typical for a Saturday night in Austin, not an empty table in sight.
“Right this way!” the host says, and the three of us follow like ducks in a row.
I reach out ahead of me, tap Jonathan lightly on the sleeve of his jacket.
“Thank you so much for making this happen,” I tell him.
I can’t believe I ever considered being a blob on the couch tonight.
As the host leads us to our table, I see countless dishes I’d love to try.
Uchi is one of those places where you give the server your budget and say Surprise me!
at the start of the meal, then share course after course of nontraditional Japanese cuisine—revelatory things you never knew you needed in your life.
I was completely overwhelmed the first time I came here, but quickly learned to trust the server, and it’s worked out every time.
When the server stops at our table, I’m—
Confused.
Someone is already sitting there, sipping from a glass of water. Is this how Jonathan snagged a reservation at the last minute—by convincing some random stranger to share his booth with us? Because that wouldn’t be awkward at all.
Jonathan slides in on the opposite side, completely unfazed. Abby too. She tilts her head, a suspiciously large smile on her face—
And that’s when I realize the man in the navy-blue suit isn’t a random stranger at all.
My heartbeat picks up.
“Thorn?” I say, in disbelief.
He turns, beaming, and the sight of him takes my breath away: this is why it took a moment to place him—not only was I under the impression that he was out on a hike right now, but he cleans up really, really well.
It’s hard to reconcile the rugged man I met out in California with the person in front of me, who looks like he was born to wear this suit.
“I thought you were on a trek this week?” I say as he unfolds himself from the booth to give me a proper greeting.
Thorn pulls me into a tight embrace, one hand between my shoulder blades and the other at my lower back. “Surprise,” he says into my hair.
My face already hurts from smiling.
This has been the very best day—and I have Abby to thank for this little plot twist, I assume. Her impish grin says I’m right.
“I can’t believe you sat on this secret all day!” I say.
“Jonathan and I both knew,” she confesses. “Thorn actually got in touch with Jonathan first—he called the JW Marriott since you’d told him how we were practically living there this summer.”
“Happy to be of service,” Jonathan says.
It’s great to see him out from behind the poolside bar for once; he cleans up pretty well, too, the perfect match for Abby.
We eat the best meal of my life—a far cry from protein bars and trail mix around the campfire—that culminates in the most perfectly fitting dessert: an elevated, deconstructed take on s’mores.
It’s a whole presentation, one that involves a scoop of hazelnut gelato perched atop a perfectly circular bed of superfine graham cracker crumbs, salted fudge sauce drizzled artfully over the top, and finally, the pièce de résistance: a gigantic homemade marshmallow toasted by our server right there at the table.
At the end of the night—after Abby and Jonathan have made a flimsy excuse to slip off together, clearly for our benefit even more than theirs—Thorn and I find ourselves alone in the rock garden.
It’s dark out now, a hot summer night, the globe lights casting a warm glow on everything. We’re standing in the back corner at a high table, sipping on chilled white wine, an excuse to linger just a little longer.
I have no idea how long he’s staying.
I think both of us have been reluctant to acknowledge the reality that, after this fancy evening in our fancy clothes is over, we’ll have to go back to our regular lives.
“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” I say quietly, once I’m down to my last two sips of sauvignon blanc.
I’ve been avoiding the last two sips for ten minutes now, because once my wine is gone, this magical night will be that much closer to being over.
“I know,” he says with a shy smile. “Neither can I.”
He sets his wineglass down, and just like that, his smile fades.
This is it, I think. This is the part where we acknowledge reality.
“So,” he says slowly, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Me too,” I interject, afraid of facing what will inevitably come next. “I’ve been thinking a lot.”
Before he tells me how impossible it is for us to be together, even though we’ve been living in wishful-thinking land ever since I flew home from California, I just want him to know I’ve been trying to come up with ways we could make it work.
“I found a cabin,” I say in a rush. “Out in California, close enough that we could see each other whenever you’re not at work—I would really miss Abby and Jonathan, but I can already do my job remotely, so at least that would be taken care of, and—”
“Sadie.”
All the words on the tip of my tongue evaporate at the sound of his voice, so gentle but firm.
“What if,” he says slowly, reaching into his jacket pocket, eyes intensely on mine, “I stayed here instead?”
He opens his palm, revealing a key.
My mouth falls open. I blink, surprised by the tears that have instantly sprung up—
Surprised by him.
“I got a new job with a tour company that does hikes out in the Hill Country,” he says. “Got a place of my own here in town, too.”
He tells me how the job offer was on the table for months, but then they found someone else—which fell through when the guy decided not to move after all.
Thorn said yes in a heartbeat when they reached back out, even though he was afraid of breaking the news to his current boss.
She was surprisingly supportive, and insisted they’ll find a way to make things work without him.
I take in everything he isn’t saying: his role at the tour company in California was so much more than just a job for him—it was his entire life. It was home.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I ask, afraid that if I breathe too hard, this sparkling glimpse of hope will turn to ash.
He grins. “Already done,” he says.
“Isn’t it hard to leave someplace behind when it means so much to you?” I’ve been struggling with the same questions, and Austin doesn’t mean nearly as much to me as the Sierras mean to Thorn.
“I’ve spent my entire life there,” he says. “It’s hard in some ways, but at the end of the day, it was surprisingly simple.” He grins again, then stashes the key back in his pocket. “It’s time for a new adventure. A new adventure with you, if you’re up for it.”
I throw my arms around him, wishing more than anything we were inside a waterfall cave right now, tucked away in secret where I could kiss him for as long and as hard as I want to.
There will be time for that, I realize: there will be time for everything. Fancy dinners, campfires under the stars, whatever we decide, wherever we end up. For once, I don’t have to know all the details to know it’s exactly what I want.
I’d follow this man on an adventure anywhere.
I’d trust him with my life.
“I’m incredibly up for it,” I tell him.
Thorn’s fingers land lightly on the curve of my neck, and he pulls me in close, until his lips find mine and there’s no space between us at all. I let myself get lost—this moment could last forever and still not be long enough.
He kisses me like we have all the time in the world, like we’re the only two people on the planet. It feels like a dream, the best dream yet. It hasn’t sunk in yet that this is real life…that it’s my life.
When we break away, his eyes are sparkling under the globe lights.
It’s beautiful when I think about it: this moment may be over, but it isn’t the end. There will be more, many more, because the road ahead of us is long—and we get to explore it together.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he says, his smile bright as he leans in for another kiss.
Every single step that brought us to this point—every difficult, miserable, uncomfortable turn along the way—has been more than worth it, because all of it led me straight to him.
Wherever the road takes us from here, I’m ready.