CHAPTER THIRTY
We sat in the van beneath a pine tree, the late-summer light falling across the dashboard.
By then, we had been on the road for nearly two months.
The air smelled like pine needles and incoming rain.
Tristan had one leg stretched out, the other bent, his arm draped casually over the back of the seat.
I was curled up beside him, knees tucked under me, watching the way the light caught in his hair.
He looked calm. But there was something else there under the surface. A quiet tension, as though he was holding something back.
He hadn’t probed further about why people might be looking at me. All the next day, he’d been in a fog. His answers were quiet and short, but he touched me relentlessly. Always watched me and made sure he knew where I was going. He didn’t want me out of his sight.
There was fear in him.
It stole my breath away.
What are we doing? Daze, what are you doing?
“I’ve been thinking,” he said finally, voice low.
I turned to him, waiting. I couldn’t help the sudden nerves that swarmed me. The feeling that at any moment he might not want this—want me. But I knew that wasn’t the case. A man who didn’t want someone wouldn’t look terrified of losing them.
“When summer ends,” he began, “I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“My hometown,” he said. “East Coast. It’s not much, but it’s quiet and feels private. It’s got this lake that turns silver in the fall. And the trees…they go wild with color. Like the whole place catches fire.”
I smiled faintly, my heart slowing down with relief. “Sounds beautiful.”
“It is,” he said. “But it’s more than that.
It’s where I grew up. Where my dad taught me how to play guitar and where I first learned how to fix things.
Like the camper. I’m trying to frame the place in my mind.
I keep trying to tell myself that just because he died there, it isn’t tainted.
I can pick up the pieces. With you…if you wanted. ”
I swallowed hard, heart aching at the tenderness in his voice.
“I want to show you that place,” he said. “Because it’s mine. A piece of me I’m learning to accept. And I want you to see it. I want…”
Us.
He wanted us.
I could almost hear the word he didn’t say.
I looked down at my hands, unsure what to say.
The idea of going anywhere for longer than a few days felt surreal.
We hadn’t even figured out where we were sleeping tomorrow.
It had become our norm. But the way he said it—like it wasn’t just a trip, but a big step in life—made something happy stir inside me.
“You don’t have to decide now,” he added quickly. “I just… I wanted you to know what I was feeling and…where I want this to go. I know that you have…that you might have other commitments.”
He meant my son.
It was the one thing I refused to talk about. Another thing he wanted to bring up, but he wouldn’t.
I looked up at him, and he was watching me with that steady gaze. Always patient with me. Always tender to me. I had a feeling I wouldn’t recognize him if he treated me like he treated everyone else. I liked that special feeling, knowing I was different in his eyes.
But it was going to be a bad different soon.
I felt the tears threaten again, but I blinked them back. I didn’t want to cry. Not now. Not when the world felt so full of possibility.
“I’ll think about it,” I whispered.
He smiled softly. “That’s all I ask.”
He has to know.
He needs to know everything first before you follow him to a place that would become your forever.
Outside, a butterfly drifted past the windshield, its wings catching the light. I watched it disappear into the trees and wondered what it would feel like to follow.