7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Trent
The call comes Sunday morning, while I'm flipping pancakes in Gus Barlow's kitchen wearing yesterday's shirt and feeling like the luckiest man on Lake Mercury.
I hear Josie's phone buzz on the porch. I hear her answer. And I hear the exact moment the summer ends—her voice going careful and flat, the voice she uses when she's being responsible.
"That's... great, Gary. Yeah. No, I understand. Five percent over asking price. As is.” A pause. "Can I have until Tuesday?"
I stand there with a spatula in my hand while a pancake burns.
When she comes inside, she's wrapped in Gus's old flannel with her arms crossed over her middle, holding herself together at the seams, and she can't quite look at me.
"You heard," she says.
"Hard not to."
"It's an amazing offer. It’s exactly what I hoped for.”
"Okay," I say.
Her eyes finally come up. "Okay? That's it?"
I've got a whole tackle box of jokes for this moment. I could make her laugh, buy us one more good day, keep it light the way I've kept everything light my whole life.
But I watched Joel play it patient to get the girl, and Forrest play it quiet, and Ace play it cool, and I'm not built like any of them. There's only one way I know how to do things, and that's out loud.
"No," I say. "That's not it. Josie, please don't stand there and act like this summer didn't happen. Like last night didn't happen. Please.”
"Trent—"
"I love you."
The words land in the kitchen like a dropped anchor. Her mouth falls into a small, stunned O.
"Yeah," I say, quieter. "I know. Three weeks. Everyone's going to say it's too fast, and everyone can mind their business, because I've never been more sure of anything. I love you.”
She's crying now, quiet leaks down her cheeks, and it takes everything I've got to stay on my side of the kitchen and finish.
"And I'm not gonna beg you to turn down life-changing money, because that's not fair and I'm not that guy.
But you should know what you're deciding between.
It's not a cottage and a fresh start. It's not even you and me.
" I take a breath. "Gus put your name on that entry form because he wanted you to have this place.
The lake. The town. Thursday pizza. People who'd form a search party if you missed it.
That's the offer on the other side of the table, and your realtor doesn't have a form for it. "
The kitchen is dead quiet except for the second pancake burning.
"I told Gary I'd decide by Tuesday," she whispers.
"The derby's Saturday."
"I know."
"Fish it with me first." I hold out my hand, palm up, the way you do when you're asking, not taking. "Whatever you decide after, I'll drive you to the signing myself and I won't make it weird. But you fish that derby, Josie-girl. You finish what Gus started. You owe him that. You owe you that."
She looks at my hand for a long, long moment. The lake glitters through the window behind her.
Then she puts her hand in mine, and she doesn't let go too fast.
She doesn't let go at all.
"Partners," she says.
"Partners," I say, and pull her in, and we stand there in the burnt-pancake smoke, holding on.