Chapter 21
VINCE
Ibarely stir all night on the surprisingly soft mattress, and when I wake the following morning, Fletcher is gone.
I lift my head to look for him, but the small room is empty.
Sitting up, I stifle a yawn as I take in my surroundings.
The cabin is a single plain room with wood floors and wood walls.
It’s roughly the size of the in-law suite, with no kitchen, no bathroom—just a bed and a small bench for a table.
The air is chilly and quiet, full of promise.
Through the window, I catch a glimpse of Fletcher’s red flannel jacket. What is he doing outside?
The cold floor nips my bare feet as I walk to the window. Fletcher turns, almost as if sensing me. His eyes soften, and he waves, pointing to the portable French press on the camp stove.
He’s making us coffee? I’d surrendered to the idea that we wouldn’t have any up here.
I lean against the window frame, peering out. It’s utterly breathtaking—nothing but trees and a vast blue sky.
A burst of cold air swirls around me when Fletcher comes back inside a few minutes later, carrying two steaming mugs.
He offers me one. “Morning. It’s not the best coffee, but at least we have some. I have creamer in the cooler.”
After sweetening my drink, I sit on the edge of the bed and let my arms rest on my thighs, grounding myself with the solid floor beneath my feet.
Fletcher sits beside me, shivering a little. “How’d you sleep?”
“Pretty good. You?”
He shrugs. “Good enough, I guess. Got a little cold, though.”
The pain in his voice makes my heart ache. I’d fallen asleep so quickly last night—too fast for me to even reach for him. I’d wanted to hold him all night.
I wrap an arm around his back and lean in to kiss his temple. Fletcher audibly sighs in relief. “I saw a hawk,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“Landed not too far from here. I think there’s a nest. We’ll have to go look for it later.”
“Sounds good.”
We drink in silence. The tension is still lingering between us, held captive by too many questions and not enough answers.
We need to talk—really talk—about our future.
But I’m not sure how to start that conversation.
I’m even less sure of what I’m going to say.
So I stare at a knot in the wood while Fletcher tells me about the herd of deer he usually sees around here and the telescope he wants to buy for the cabin.
None of it matters, and somehow, all of it does. He’s painting a picture of a place I want to come back to.
After a while, he pulls the bagels and cream cheese from the cooler, along with a carton of fruit.
While he slices and smothers the bagels in creamy goodness, I reach into the side pocket of my duffel bag and pull out a deck of cards.
They’re worn around the edges, the box torn in one corner. But they’re familiar in my hands.
Fletcher grins. “You brought cards?”
I shrug. “Wasn’t sure what the plan was, so I thought they might be useful.”
He reaches inside his coat pocket, revealing a deck he brought too.
I laugh. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”
My fingers know what to do even when my head doesn’t. The rhythm of shuffling settles me. Pulling a knee up, I turn to face Fletcher, then do a simple trick, one I’ve done a few times for him already. He watches carefully, as if trying to figure it out. When I reveal his card, he gapes.
“Seriously! How do you do that?”
I shrug like a man with all the secrets.
“Teach me.”
I snort. “But then it loses its charm.”
“So? I still want to learn.”
I show him, starting with some of the easier tricks. Fletcher fumbles and drops half the deck before his big reveal. I laugh before I can stop myself, the sound sharp and surprised, like it didn’t come from me at all.
Fletcher grins like he won something. “How about speed? Do you know speed?”
“Of course.”
We sit cross-legged on the bed, knees bumping, cards scattered everywhere as we rush to get rid of our stacks. The tension melts easily through the laughter and playful jabs, pulling us back into an easy rhythm.
Eventually, the air in the cabin changes, becoming warm and still. Fletcher gets up. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
Outside, the cool air fills my lungs, clean and crisp. The frozen ground crunches beneath our feet. We don’t go far before my body forces me to slow down. Fletcher slows without comment, matching my pace like it’s nothing.
At some point, our hands find each other, threading together.
We don’t find the hawk’s nest, but I count two mule deer and a fox darting between the trees.
“It’s so pretty here,” I say dreamily.
“Isn’t it?” Fletcher sucks in a deep breath. “I love coming here.”
“You said you and Darren were going to redo the cabin?”
“Yeah. Nothing fancy. Just new walls and better flooring. Something that could handle the weather better. Probably install some better windows too, so we can open them in the summer.” He looks back at the cabin.
“Dare wanted to sell it, but I don’t know.
I kinda love its charm.” His voice lowers as he digs a toe into the dirt.
“I’ve never brought anyone here. Not even Georgie. ”
“You always come alone?”
“Dare and I came together once, that first night after we bought it, but otherwise, yeah. I’ve always come alone. It’s been my little hiding place. Somewhere where I can think, you know? I don’t think Darren even uses it anymore, to be honest.”
I stop walking, turning Fletcher to face me. Now I feel even worse about how I’d reacted. “Thank you for sharing it with me then.”
He leans in, sliding an arm around me. I brush my lips over his before pulling him in for a hug. He’d meant this weekend as a gift, and I completely blew it out of the water.
Back inside, we eat the rest of the fruit and chips for lunch. I empty the bag without meaning to, caught up in our easy conversation.
The afternoon blurs. We end up on the bed again, fully dressed, boots kicked off. The world narrows to the warmth of Fletcher’s side and the steady rise and fall of his chest. Draping an arm over him, I rest my head on his chest, fully relaxed.
Fletcher’s arm curls around me, his lips warm against my forehead. There’s no pressure. No expectation. Just us sharing the space.
It’s what I needed.
What we needed.
“Next time we come up here, we should bring better coffee,” Fletcher says, almost offhandedly. “I’m still tasting it from this morning.”
The words shatter the fuzzy feelings. Next time.
Lifting my head, I look at him, at the soft light touching his face, the small scar above his eyebrow, and my heart squeezes. God, how I love him. I love everything about Fletcher, and that terrifies me.
We have to talk about this.
“I… don’t know what next time looks like,” I say, somehow keeping my voice from shaking. “I don’t know what I’ll be able to do. Or want. Or… handle.”
Fletcher nods. “I know.”
He watches me carefully, like he knows there’s a crack forming. “But that’s okay, Vince. It’s okay to not know.”
I sit up, pressing my back against the wall. Fletcher mirrors me, close enough that our knees touch.
Where do I even begin? How do I explain that I want a future with him without promising that we’ll ever get one? Not the kind he’ll want, anyway.
“I want this more than anything,” I say. “I think Christmas solidified that for me. I want to be with you.”
He smiles softly, but it’s etched with fear. “I sense a but,” he says quietly.
“I’m trying to be okay with what we have, but I’m the kind of guy who looks ahead. Who sees the whole picture and makes plans, you know. It’s how I was raised, and how I was trained to be.”
He nods slowly. “And it’s hard to do that when your body fights you. You can’t see what it’ll look like for us.”
He says it so easily, as if he’s pieced all this together himself. Maybe he has. He certainly knows me well enough to.
I rub my fingertips together, trying to feel them. “I’m scared to make promises to you or dream about what our life could be like, because I feel like anything I say or do will just… disappear. I won’t be able to follow through.”
“Then we don’t plan,” he says simply. “If something new comes, we adapt and keep going. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I inwardly cringe. A life without plans sounds worse than a horror show.
I turn to him. “What if what I need is smaller than what you want, though? I don’t want to slow you down.”
He shakes his head. “I learned long ago there is nothing more important than the people in my life. Nothing. Where I go, what I do… it’s all extra, hon. It’s all noise. But you, Georgie, my brother? You’re what I need.”
“What about your business? Or even this, coming up here? If I’m in a wheelchair—”
He cuts me off by reaching for me. “You keep saying that like it’s a death sentence. But you can still have an amazing life if you lose the ability to walk, Vince. You know that.”
“It’s not easy.”
“When did I ever say I needed easy?” He squeezes my hand.
“Look, I know what’s coming. I’ve done my research on multiple sclerosis too.
It doesn’t scare me.” He lowers his gaze.
“That’s not true, actually. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to you, but only because I care about you.
I don’t want you to suffer or—” He stops, his lip trembling.
He closes his eyes, tucking his face against his shoulder.
He’s quiet for a long time before saying in a cracked voice, “I hate that I can’t take it away. ”
Something in my chest eases. I lift his hand to kiss the back of it. “You shouldn’t have to carry it. That’s my point.”
“But I want to,” he says firmly. “I’m saying I know what might happen.
I know it won’t be easy and it’s going to be terrifying for both of us.
But I still want to be with you. And there’s a part of me, a really big part if I’m honest, that’s afraid you’re going to walk away just because you think I can’t handle it or something. ”