Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
JADA
Bean & Bloom smells like cinnamon. The latte in my hands is the best thing I've tasted since my own cooking, which is saying something because my ego about my omelets is not small.
Crimson Hollow is ridiculous. A postcard town tucked into the mountains with storefronts that look hand painted, hanging flower baskets on every lamppost, and people who say good morning like they mean it.
The woman behind the counter, Sage, gave me extra foam without asking.
Told me the muffins were fresh. Asked if I was passing through or staying.
"Passing through," I said. Because that's what I do now. Pass through places. Leave before the leaving gets done for me.
Two days since I drove off Beck's mountain.
Two days in a motel room above the town's only bookshop, staring at a ceiling with a water stain shaped like Texas while Duke's face plays on repeat in my head.
That whine. Those brown eyes watching me pack.
Pressing his body against my legs, begging me not to go.
The man didn't beg. The man told me to leave.
Stood in his kitchen gripping the counter with white knuckles while I stripped off his shirt and threw it at his chest because what else do you do when somebody hands you their body, their bed, their quiet morning coffee, then looks you in the face and says go?
My phone has been blowing up.
Tasha:
You LEFT? GIRL
What happened
Jada I swear to God if you don't answer me
Mama:
Baby, Tasha called. She said you were upset. Call me when you can. I love you.
Tasha:
Your mama called ME asking if I knew what was wrong. Now I gotta lie to your mother which is a SIN
Haven't responded to any of them. Can't figure out what to say.
"I fell for a man in a week and he kicked me out" sounds pathetic.
"I fell for a man in a week and he kicked me out because he's scared" sounds like an excuse.
"I fell for a man in a week" sounds like me, doing what I always do, giving everything to someone who didn't ask for it.
That's the part that burns.
Because Beck's right. Not about me leaving.
About me having no plan. My whole life I had a plan.
Graduate. Get the job. Work the sixty hour weeks.
Be the one everybody counts on. Jada will handle it.
Jada will organize it. Jada will stay late, pick up the slack, cover the shift, plan the party, bring the food, check on Mama, call Tasha back, never miss a birthday, never say no, never once sit down and ask herself what the hell she actually wants.
The road trip was supposed to answer that question. Sell the apartment. Quit the job. Drive until the guilt of doing something for myself stopped feeling like swallowing glass.
Then I ended up on a mountain with a man who looked at me across a porch and said "you should go," and all I heard was every boss, every boyfriend, every friend who only called when they needed something, saying the same thing in different words. You're too much. You're too loud. You're too here.
Except.
Except he also read me Rilke at sunset. Built me a bookshelf because mine was warped. Held me after sex with his heartbeat under my cheek, slowing down, calming, like my presence was the first peace he'd had in a year.
And except for the look on his face when I walked out. The one he tried to hide. The one that said "I just made the worst decision of my life and I know it."
Sage comes by with a refill. Slides into the booth across from me with a warmth that says she does this regularly.
"You okay? You've been staring at that muffin for twenty minutes without eating it."
"Man trouble."
"Ah." She nods with the authority of a woman who has handled some man trouble of her own. "You wanna talk about it?"
"He lives on a mountain. He pushed me away because he's scared. And his dog misses me."
"The dog part is the worst part."
"It really is."
She squeezes my hand across the table. Gets up. Refills my coffee. Doesn't push.
I eat the muffin. It's blueberry lemon. Incredible.
By afternoon, I'm walking through town. Past Chapter & Curse, a bookshop that looks like it was built inside a fairy tale.
Past Tangled Roots, a salon where a woman with honey blonde curls is laughing with a client on the porch.
Past a garage called Grizzle & Grind where a man with blue streaked hair is bent under the hood of a truck, scowling at the engine.
This town is beautiful. Warm. Full of people who seem to actually belong to each other. Something I've been looking for my whole road trip without knowing what to call it.
Community. Belonging. A place where somebody saves you the good muffin.
My phone rings. Unknown number.
"Hello?"
Breathing. Heavy. Then a voice I've been hearing in my sleep. "It's Beck."
Every nerve in my body fires at once. Leaning against the bookshop wall, I close my eyes. "How'd you get this number?"
"You called your friend from my sat phone. The number stored."
Silence. The kind that hurts.
"Duke won't eat."
A laugh punches out of me. Watery. "That's why you're calling? The dog?"
"He hasn't moved from the door since you left. Won't eat. Won't go outside except to piss. He just sits there." A pause. "Staring at where your car was."
My eyes sting. Pressing my hand over my mouth, I will myself not to cry on a sidewalk in a town I've known for two days.
"Jada." His voice drops. Raw. "I need to tell you something. And I need to say it in person."
"You told me to leave, Beck."
"I know."
"You looked me in the face and asked me what I was doing there. Like the answer wasn't obvious. Like I hadn't been sleeping in your bed, cooking in your kitchen, falling for you in real time while you pretended you couldn't feel it too."
"I know." Quieter now. "I'm in town."
My eyes snap open. "What?"
"Crimson Hollow. Parked by the café. Duke's with me." Another pause. "I told myself he's the reason I came. But I've been sitting in this truck for thirty minutes trying to figure out what to say to you and the truth is the dog was just the excuse."
Pushing off the wall, I walk toward Bean & Bloom. Past the salon. Past the bookshop. Around the corner where the main street curves.
His truck is parked at the curb. Green. Mud on the wheel wells. And inside the cab, Duke's giant head is out the passenger window, nose working the air. The second he sees me, he starts barking. Full body, tail going insane, scrambling for the door.
Beck gets out. Walks around the hood. Stands on the sidewalk in his flannel and his boots, beard unkempt, eyes red like he hasn't slept. In his hand, a folded piece of paper.
"I looked you up." He holds the paper out. "Jada Williams. Head of Events, Pinnacle Hospitality Group, Atlanta. Employee of the year three times. Organized a thousand person charity gala that raised two million dollars. Your LinkedIn says 'reliable, dedicated, tireless.'"
"Why are you telling me things I already know?"
"Because you asked me to tell you something. On that porch. You asked me to tell you why I quit, why I'm up on that mountain." His jaw works. "I couldn't. So I'm gonna tell you something else first."
He unfolds the paper. His hands are shaking. Beckett Hale's hands, the ones that split wood and built bookshelves and held my hips while I came apart, are trembling.
"I Googled you because I wanted to know what I was losing.
And every article, every award, every quote from your bosses says the same thing.
Jada is the one who shows up. Jada is the one who stays.
Jada makes everyone around her better." He looks at me.
"And not one of them mentions what Jada wants. "
My breath catches.
"You asked me what I'm carrying. It's guilt.
A building I designed collapsed because the developer cut corners.
Three people died. I was cleared but that doesn't matter because I drew the plans.
I put the lines on the paper. And I couldn't live with that, so I stopped drawing.
Stopped building. Stopped wanting anything because wanting is what got people killed. "
Tears fall. Mine. His eyes are wet but he holds.
"Then you showed up with your sundress and your omelets and your goddamn road trip, and I wanted something again. Wanted you. That scared me so bad I did the only thing I know how to do. I pushed."
Duke is losing his mind in the truck. Barking, scratching at the window. Beck doesn't look away from me.
"Jada, I'm not good at this. I don't know how to let somebody in without breaking what they bring.
But I turned on my phone this morning and called my mother.
Called my brother. Called Theo. Told all three of them I met a woman.
My mother cried. My brother said 'about time.
' Theo said 'Beck, listen.'" A choked laugh. "Because he always says that."
Moving toward him, I stop a foot away. "What do you want, Beck?"
"You." No hesitation. "On my mountain. In my kitchen. Reading my books. Annoying my dog. I want your terrible singing in the shower. I want your omelets every morning. And I want to build you something. Anything. Whatever you need."
"I sing beautifully."
"You really don't."
Grabbing his flannel, I pull him down to me. Kiss him in the middle of Crimson Hollow's main street while Duke howls from the truck. His arms wrap around my waist, lifting me off the sidewalk. My legs hook around him. Someone whistles from across the street. Might be the blue haired mechanic.
Pulling back, I hold his face. Thumbs against his cheekbones. Gray eyes, wet, open, terrified.
"I want a real bed frame. Not a mattress on the floor."
"Done."
"And a kitchen table. For eating at. Like humans."
"Done."
"And Duke gets a real dog bed. Not that flat rug you've been pretending is adequate."
"He's gonna sleep on your side of the bed anyway."
My side. Of the bed.
Kissing him again, softer now, I taste salt. His. Mine. Both. His arms tighten. Duke barks.
Setting me down, Beck keeps his forehead pressed to mine. His breathing is ragged. One hand cups the back of my neck. The other stays locked around my waist.
"I love you." The words come out of me before I decide to say them. No rehearsal. No plan. Just truth, standing on a sidewalk in a mountain town I've known for two days, looking up at a man I've known for eight. "I know that's insane. I know it's been a week. I don't care. I love you, Beck."
His eyes close. His grip on my neck tightens. When he opens them, everything he's been carrying, the guilt, the grief, the year of silence, is right there on the surface. Unguarded. Raw.
"I love you, Jada." His voice breaks on my name. "I've been dead for fourteen months. You walked up my porch steps and brought me back."
Duke howls.
We both laugh. Wet, messy, ugly beautiful laughter that shakes our bodies while we hold onto each other on the main street of Crimson Hollow.
This wasn't the plan. The plan was no plan. The plan was drive until I figured out what I wanted.
Turns out what I wanted was at the end of a road without a name. A grumpy man who reads poetry. A dog who chose me before I chose myself. And a mountain that feels, for the first time in my life, like home.