Chapter 12
Roasted chestnuts from a street vendor mixed with exhaust fumes and the bite of frigid wind blowing down the street as Ally stood in front of the window at Bergdorf Goodman, watching the elaborate holiday display.
Mechanical figures danced behind glass in a winter wonderland that probably cost more than most people’s houses.
The city hummed around her, car horns, sirens, the endless chatter of tourists, but after being here for a few days, all she could think about was how far she felt from home.
She pulled her red wool coat tighter as another gust of wind whipped through the canyon of buildings. Even through the thick glass, she could hear the tinkling melody of the display’s music box soundtrack, the delicate notes practically lost in the noise of the city.
“Pretty amazing, right?” Colton appeared beside her, two steaming cups of hot chocolate in his gloved hands. The rich chocolate scent cut through the harsh city air, and she wrapped her fingers around the cup’s warmth.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, though something hollow echoed in her voice. The display was stunning, but she missed home. Was she homesick? At her age?
He studied her profile, his eyes reflecting the multicolored lights from the window. “You’ve been quiet since we left the hotel this morning.”
She took a sip of the hot chocolate, the velvety sweetness coating her tongue, but it did nothing to ease the tightness in her chest. How could she tell him that all the attention, the preferential treatment in restaurants, people coming up to him on the streets, the shift in his demeanor, and then the whole modeling thing yesterday, had made her feel like she was losing him one small piece at a time?
He was like a different person when he was back in his old life …
and she wasn’t sure if she liked this version of him.
“Just taking it all in,” she said, but her fingers gripped the cup tighter.
They walked toward Rockefeller Center, their footsteps drowned out by all the other tourists going to see and do the same things in the days leading up to Christmas.
The enormous Christmas tree loomed ahead of them, massive and glittering, surrounded by tourists taking selfies and couples ice skating on the rink below.
“Remember when we talked about what you wanted to do after baseball?” She asked as they found a spot along the railing overlooking the ice rink.
He leaned against the metal barrier, his shoulder brushing hers. “Yeah. Why?”
“Yesterday, watching you work...” She paused, gathering her courage. “You looked like you belonged there. Not at all uncomfortable like you thought you’d be. Natural.”
The sound of skate blades cutting across ice drifted up from below, punctuated by laughter and the occasional thud of someone falling. For a long moment, Colton just stood there, watching the skaters but not really seeing them.
“Frank’s got three more campaigns lined up so far,” he admitted. “Sports equipment endorsements, cologne ads, maybe even some acting auditions.” He turned to face her. “The money’s good. Obscenely good.”
There it was. The truth she’d been dreading. Ally’s stomach dropped, and it had nothing to do with the frigid air. “And you want to do it.”
“I don’t know what I want.” Frustration edged his voice. “Baseball was everything to me for so long, and now...” He gestured at the busy street around them. “This feels like something. Like I’m good at something again.”
A group of tourists pushed past them, laughing loudly as they posed for photos with the tree in the background. Someone’s expensive perfume cut through the winter air before being swept away by the wind.
“What does that mean for us?” The question slipped out before she could stop it, barely audible over the urban noise.
His expression softened. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’ll fly back and forth, get a place in the city. Keep the house in Blueberry Hill. We could—”
“Live separate lives?” She shook her head. “You in New York being Colton Matthews the celebrity, me back home feeding chickens and wondering when you’ll remember you have a life there too?”
Pain flashed across his face, making her wish she could take the words back. Below them, a child squealed with delight as their father helped them wobble across the ice, the sound echoing off the surrounding buildings.
“That’s not fair,” he pressed his lips together.
“Isn’t it?” She turned to face him, her jaw aching. “You said yourself you felt at home here in the city. You were laughing with the photographer, charming the assistants. That’s not the man who told me he was done with that world.”
“People change. Goals change.” His jaw tightened, and she watched him retreat behind the walls she’d thought they’d torn down. “I thought you’d understand that better than anyone.”
The accusation hung between them like the icicles forming on the building eaves above.
“I do understand,” she whispered. “That’s what scares me.”
---
Later that evening, she sat alone in their hotel room catching up on work while Colton attended a dinner with his agent and potential sponsors.
The view from their thirty-second-floor window was spectacular with the city spread out like a glittering circuit board, but she found herself thinking about the simple view from the cottage windows.
The way the lake reflected the mountain lights at night.
And how much she’d changed since she’d left her old life in Milwaukee.
She’d tried calling her mom earlier, but the call had gone to voicemail.
Ryan was probably playing games since he was on winter break, and her sister was most likely working late again.
Talk about changes. If anyone would have told her that her flighty, live in the moment, sister would have grown up so fast over the past few months, Ally would have believed that aliens had replaced Christina with one of her own.
But she’d changed, and not just her, but all of them had changed this year.
The room-service menu sat untouched on the marble coffee table. Even the luxury felt hollow with the Egyptian cotton sheets and French champagne when all she wanted was to curl up on the couch in her perfect little house with a book and Mandy, and listen to the fire crackle.
As if thinking about how he fit in her life conjured him, Ally’s phone buzzed with a text from Colton.
Dinner running late. Don’t wait up. Love you.
Two words that should have reassured her but instead made her feel more alone than ever. She pulled out her laptop and opened a new document, her fingers hovering over the keys. Maybe if she wrote it down, she could make sense of the tangled mess of emotions in her chest.
What happens when the person you love becomes someone you don’t recognize? When their dreams pull them toward a future that doesn’t include you? Or maybe you’re seeing them as they really are?
She stared at the words glowing on the screen. Outside, the city never slept, but Ally had never felt more awake to the possibility that some distances couldn’t be bridged by love alone.
---
The next morning, Colton was already dressed when she woke, standing by the window in an expensive charcoal suit that made him look like he belonged in this world of glass and steel.
The morning light caught the planes of his face, highlighting the confidence that had been missing in Blueberry Hill.
“Morning,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “I have meetings all day. Frank wants to introduce me to some people and talk about a possible long-term contract or two.”
Ally sat up, pulling the sheet around herself. “How long-term?”
“Ally...” He turned from the window, and she could see the war playing out in his blue eyes. “This could be it. My way back. Not to baseball, but to something that matters. Something that pays the money I’m used to.” He ran a hand through his perfect hair. “And something that gives me purpose.”
“And if I asked you not to do it?” Even as she said it, she knew the answer, knew it wasn’t fair, but it was too late to take back the words as they drifted in the air, waiting.
For a moment, she thought she saw the old Colton, the man who’d helped her plant flowers and fixed her broken greenhouse light. But then his expression shuttered.
“I wouldn’t ask you to relocate here with me and give up the business you’re building,” he said finally. “And you can’t ask me to give up something I want.”
After he left, she stood in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water wash away tears she refused to acknowledge. The expensive hotel toiletries smelled like vanilla and sandalwood, but she found herself missing the simple lavender soap they kept at the cottage.
She spent the day walking through the city, trying to see it through Colton’s eyes.
The energy was intoxicating, all the art galleries and Broadway shows, restaurants where dinner cost more than she made in a week, shops filled with beautiful things she’d never need.
It was a world of possibilities, of reinvention, of becoming someone bigger than yourself.
But it wasn’t home. It wasn’t the life she’d created for herself.
As the afternoon light faded to dusk, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold between the skyscrapers, Ally found herself in Central Park.
The horse-drawn carriages clip-clopped past on the road beside her, their bells jingling softly in the cold air.
The scent of roasted nuts from a nearby vendor mixed with the earthy smell of winter-bare trees.
She thought about the choices Colton was facing, and the one she would have to make.
If he wanted all this, some semblance of his old life back, she wouldn’t stand in his way, even though she’d thrown the choice at him last night.
It wasn’t fair to either of them, and somewhere down the road he’d end up resenting her.
Did she love him enough to let him go toward a life that didn’t include her, but would make him happy?
Her phone rang, and her mom’s voice filled her ear like a lifeline.
“How’s the big city?” Tara asked, and Ally could hear the cottage in the background. The hum of the refrigerator, the sound of voices, Will and everyone getting ready for the holiday. Home.
“Complicated,” she managed, sinking onto a park bench as families walked past with hot chocolate and shopping bags.
“Want to talk about it?”
And sitting there in the gathering darkness of a city that never stopped moving, surrounded by millions of strangers living their own complicated lives, Ally finally found the words to voice the fear that had been growing in her chest since yesterday.
“What if loving someone means accepting that you’re not enough to make them stay?”
The silence stretched across the miles between them, filled with all the understanding that only came from a mother who’d watched her own dreams reshape around the choices love demanded.
“Oh, honey,” her mom said softly. “Sometimes love means accepting who someone really is, even when it breaks your heart. And sometimes it means accepting who you are, too.”
As Ally sat in the cold, watching the lights of the city twinkle to life around her, she realized that some questions didn’t have easy answers. Some choices couldn’t be made for other people, no matter how much you loved them.
And sometimes, the hardest lesson love taught you was when to hold on and when to let go.