Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ezra
“Remind me to never ever have kids,” I say, following Autumn into her house and collapsing onto her couch.
She scoffs. “Thirty-five of the forty weren’t bad.”
“Yeah, but the couple that were bad were really bad.” That Lucas Allred shouldn’t be allowed to go on field trips.
“Besides,” Autumn says, “your kids would never act like Stew Allred’s.”
“Yeah?” I peer over at her. Her light blue Linus Tree Farm T-shirt is tucked into her holey jeans. Her amber eyes are on me and her full lips beckon me closer.
“Sure. You wouldn’t let them.” She blinks down at her work boots. “So, what’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re here,” she says. “Instead of your own place.”
I sit up a little. “I thought we could do dinner.”
She sighs, her shoulders slumping—but with that slump, I see something small and glittery and gold about her neck, just beneath the collar of her shirt.
I stand, ignoring the tired ache in my legs from chasing Lucas Allred all over the farm today, and walk toward her.
She clears her throat, her slender neck straightening.
“You’re still wearing this?” I say, skidding my finger along her collarbone and scooping up the Harry Styles necklace hiding beneath her shirt. Goosebumps erupt over her neck where skin meets skin—and it’s like each one of those little bumps is cheering me on. They each chant my name and tell me to go for it. “I assumed you’d take it off. You know, once you found out it was from me.”
I don’t move back. I reveal the necklace and stay right where I am, two inches away from her, my fingers at her throat.
She swallows and I feel the motion over my fingertips, beneath her soft skin. “I’m—it’s not because of you .” Her brows knit, and while the goosebumps are making their way down each of her arms, she doesn’t move away. Those goosebumps are all on my side. “I just like Harry.”
I nod, peering down at her. “I know how much you like Harry.”
“And that’s why… that’s why I never took it off.”
“That makes sense,” I say, flattening my hand over her collar and grazing my fingers up to the side of her neck. “Do you remember,” I say, my voice just above a whisper, “that night we borrowed Mav’s old canoe and went out to Bighorn Lake?”
Another swallow—this one desperate. I see the moment Autumn forces control in her expression. Her eyes narrow, but it’s too late. I know she remembers. The canoe capsized and we spent the rest of the night huddled under one blanket in her truck, warming each other. It was the first time Autumn told me she loved me. It’s a night I will never ever forget. I’d loved her for months but waited for her to say those words first. I never wanted her feeling obligated to me in any way.
“You remember,” I whisper, cupping her neck and inching ever closer.
Her eyes flutter closed. “Ezra,” she says, and it’s the sweet sound of giving in. Her chin lifts up to me. She leans into my touch, her hands still at her sides—because she’s Autumn and she’s stubborn and she can’t give in completely.
“I don’t have a job to run back to. I don’t have an apartment waiting on me.” My lips are centimeters from hers. We’re getting there, every day, every moment, slowly . I’m wearing her down. Like Lucas Allred, I won’t give up. “I could stay,” I tell her, my lips just brushing hers.
Her eyes flutter open before I can prepare for landing. “No!” she barks, shaking her head and stumbling back one step, then two.
“No?”
“You can’t stay here”—her breath hitches—“not with Mav.”
“I wouldn’t actually stay with Mav. You know that, right? Autumn, I’ve been here three weeks and I haven’t seen the man once. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have to see him at all—” Though a part of me wants to. My therapist is right. I need that closure. I need the boy inside of me to know with certainty that he’s grown and Mav Bennett no longer has power over either of us.
“Unless?”
I shrug. “Unless what?”
“That sentence sounds like there’s an unless missing.” She stares at me and takes one step closer.
“Unless I wanted to.”
Her eyes well up with tears. “Because of what Phil said? Ezra, I’ve known you a whole lot longer and—”
“That’s true. You have known me longer. Remind me what happened that night in Mav’s canoe and I’ll forget I ever considered going to see him.” I watch her, waiting. She just needs to say the words. Confession is good for the soul. That’s what Dr. Appleby says. If she can admit to how she felt—how she still feels—we can move past this bump in the road, the one that looks a whole lot like a mountain.
Her teeth grind. “Fine. You were a chump and stood up in the canoe. ”
I smirk. “And?”
“And we tipped over. The end.”
“Not the end .”
“Oh right,” she says, tapping her jaw with her pointer finger. “It was November and we both almost died of hypothermia!”
“But we didn’t die because you insisted we strip down to our—”
Autumn flattens her finger over the top of my lips. "I remember," she growls.
“Good.” I move one step closer, depleting the space she put between us. Her hand falls from my face, landing on my chest, making certain I don’t exhaust that space completely. Still, I flatten my palm to her back and hold her tight. “Then you remember how we huddled under that blanket in your truck and you told me—”
Before I can finish that sentence, before I can say those words out loud—words she first said to me, words I never really stopped feeling even through the confusion and pain—she throws her arms around my neck and plants a kiss on my lips.
She’s shutting me up. She isn’t allowing me to say what she said back then.
I get it.
Only, I don’t really mind.