Chapter 24
MARY
Everett holds me for a long while after we get dressed.
His hands trace idly over = my jeans, lazy swirling patterns that neither of us pay much attention to.
My face is in the crook of his shoulder, my cheek resting against the fabric of his shirt.
We’re both sweaty and probably covered in sawdust and dirt, but I haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time.
It feels better to be back in his arms than I thought it would.
It’s been long enough that the sun is starting to shift in the sky, shadows sliding across the floor as the sunlight streams in through the tiny, dusty window set in the wall behind us.
Sure, it probably isn’t even ten in the morning yet, but it feels like it’s been hours since I found him splitting logs and vibrating with frustration.
I should have known this is where we would end up, but the thought still makes me laugh. I haven’t had so much as a fleeting crush on anyone in years, yet I can’t stay away from Everett to save my life.
The air around us feels still, but not stagnant.
Weighted, but not quite heavy. It just feels like things are different now.
Nothing concrete really happened—I mean, sure, we had sex again, but we’ve done that before.
Labored breathing and lingering touches between us is nothing new, at this point. Still, it feels like something changed.
Something big.
Something important.
Everett brushes a strand of hair out of my face, his fingers moving so gently over my cheek as he tucks it behind my ear.
He smiles at me like I’m delicate, to be cherished.
It brings a rush of heat to my face. I lean into the touch, silently returning his affection.
It feels so easy that I can’t imagine doing anything else, so simple that it must be right.
What else could there possibly be to life than this?
I’ve never felt so safe in someone’s arms before, like I could just close my eyes and let him take care of me. It’s exciting to trust someone as much as I trust him, and I like feeling the warmth of his body beneath me.
He’s solid and soothing, and I want to fall asleep in his arms and wake up with the blankets tangled around our ankles.
There has to be some way I can keep this.
I’ve found that life is nothing but shades of gray, and I refuse to believe that my only options are to choose Everett or my work.
I can probably manage something long distance, or maybe I can see about working remotely sometimes.
I don’t know if my boss would go for it, and I still wouldn’t be able to take on the account he offered me, but it would be something. It would be the start of a compromise.
That’s better than nothing.
It’s probably just wishful thinking, actually. I’d have to explain why I want to change my work style, and my boss would be furious if he found out about me and Everett.
Which means that if I want to stay here, I’d have to find another job. I’d be back at square one, and I’d still be caught up in Jenny’s discomfort over my relationship with her father. A few weeks ago, I’d have found the suggestion laughable, but now I just want any excuse to stay near Everett.
I wish I could put it into words, properly tell him just how much he means to me, but I’m not that good with words.
I can talk people into things without a problem, but when it comes to explaining how I feel, I can never seem to find the right thing to say.
My brief foray into therapy ended rather abruptly because I couldn’t even explain what I was having so much trouble with.
I don’t expect him to be the first to break the silence, but he leans back and stills his hands on my thighs before speaking.
“You’re right,” he admits, a sigh on his breath. “I can’t give any of this up. So what happens on the ranch now? Where do we go from here?”
I shift in his lap, trusting him to keep me steady as I find a more comfortable position. I’m astride him on the low bench in the storage shed, which probably isn’t the best place to discuss either work or our relationship.
I decide to focus on what I have an answer for.
“We get in talks with people who need suppliers,” I say, not quite meeting his eyes. “Duffy Jr. is still interested in meeting, and there’s a larger company closer to town that I’m waiting on a response from.”
He gives me a pointed look at my obvious avoidance of talking about us, but doesn’t push it. Work I can do. I have solid plans that can be acted on when it comes to my job. My own emotions, though? That’s a minefield that I have no idea how to traverse.
“Alright, so we go talk to people. I won’t make any promises about the outcomes, but I’m willing to listen.”
A willingness to try is the only thing I’ve been trying to wrench out of him this whole time. It’s a bittersweet victory.
If I manage to save the ranch from the brink of death, of course, that’ll really mean all of this is over. I’ll go back to the office. I’ll have passed up on a huge contract, and I’ll sit in my lonely apartment and go through the motions. I wonder how long it’ll be before I stop missing Everett.
I wonder if that’s even possible.
“Thank you.” I hope my voice isn’t shaking. “I, um, I guess I’ll go get everything together and get in touch with some people.”
Everett lets me slide off his lap, but he grasps my wrists before I can step back. His hold is loose, something I could shake out of easily, but I have no desire to. I want to keep his touch on my skin for as long as I can manage, and I don’t care if that makes me greedy.
“Can I ask you something?”
His eyes are steady on mine, and I feel nerves flutter in my stomach, but I nod anyway.
“What do you want, Mary?”
The question is simple. It’s so simple, but it hits me like a ton of bricks straight to the chest.
What do I want? Everything. I want to save the ranch, and I want to keep standing in front of Everett just like this until the sun explodes, and I want to take the contract my boss offered. There’s not a single thing in my head that I don’t want, and that’s the problem.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I know exactly what he means, but I need a moment to think. He looks like he knows, but he humors me anyway.
“With me,” he clarifies. “With us. Are you still planning on going back to the city after?”
Are you going to leave me?
I hear the words as clearly as if he’d said them aloud, and my chest aches at the very thought. I wish I could tell him what he wants to hear, but I can’t bear the thought of being anything less than honest with him. He deserves better than that.
“I…” I trail off, casting my eyes around the dim light of the shed. “I don’t know.”
It feels like a failure to admit, but it’s the only truth I have to offer.
“I have no idea, Everett. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay right here, right like this,” I say, pulling one of my hands free only to twine our fingers together.
He looks down at our hands, his face carefully blank. I can’t see his eyes in the shadowy light, and I’m kind of grateful for it. I don’t think I could bear to say any of this to him if I could see emotions flicker over his face.
“I just… I don’t know what to do,” I say.
“My job is still in the city. I still have to pay my bills. I still have career goals, and I never thought about how a love life would fit into that. It almost feels like I have to go back to that, because I don’t know what my life would look like if I didn’t. ”
It sounds a bit pathetic out loud, but it’s the truth.
Everett stands, releasing the wrist he was still holding.
He doesn’t pull our hands apart, squeezing my fingers in a way that’s both soothing and hopeful.
A ray of sunlight falls over his face, and the look I see in his eyes isn’t sadness or frustration.
He looks optimistic, like he has a plan. Like he might have a solution.
He lifts my hand up so he can press a kiss to my knuckles, his eyes never straying from mine.
“What if you didn’t have to leave?” he asks.
It’s such a heavy question that I have no idea how to answer it. If I didn’t have to leave, I’d plaster myself to his side until the end of days, but that’s not real life. Real life isn’t all about excited looks and abandoning your career.
If I didn’t have to do anything, I would only do the things that matter to me.
I wouldn’t pay rent to a shitty, price-gouging landlord, I wouldn’t even think about walking away from the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
All I want is to curl into Everett’s chest and forget that I ever had a life away from his side.
I want to be here, and I don’t want to leave, but I have no idea how to pick between this and what I’ve worked my entire life for.
It would be so much easier if someone else could make the decision for me.
That way, at least I wouldn’t feel guilty for whatever I left behind.
But life doesn’t work like that. I can’t just close my eyes and wish really hard.
You don’t get places in life by wanting something. You get what you want by working for it.
I can’t pretend like life is so simple that I can just do whatever I want and ignore the consequences. This isn’t some holiday movie where everything works out in the end.
No matter what I would give for it to be like that..
“Do you want me to stay, Everett?” I ask, my voice shaky.
He smiles so softly it almost hurts, reaching out to cup my face and brush his thumb over my cheek. There’s a look on his face like there’s some long explanation he wants to launch into, but he just nods.
“I do,” he says.
God, if only it were that simple.