24. Weston
Weston
The drive to Maine takes four hours.
I told Ethan I had a site visit. He looked at me for a long moment and said sure in the tone that means he knows exactly what kind of site visit this is.
The B&B is at the end of a road that gets quieter the longer you're on it. White clapboard, green shutters, a garden recently tended, a parking area that's been reorganized since the last photo I saw of it.
Then I get out and go in.
The lobby has low ceilings, wooden floors, and a reception desk closer to the entrance than it probably was originally. The window behind it faces the water.
Monique is behind the desk.
She's looking at her screen when I come through the door. Her hands are on the keyboard.
She looks up.
Her chin comes up a fraction. Her eyes go to the desk surface for one beat and back to me, and then she sits up slightly in her chair.
"Mr. Blackwood." She smiles.
I nod. "Ms. Castellano."
"Do you have a reservation?" she asks.
“Maybe.” I wink at her. "Actually I don’t."
"That's quite an oversight for a man who runs hotels."
"I've been told I have room for improvement."
The corner of her mouth pulls up. She looks at her screen. "We have a room available. Garden view. Breakfast included."
"Sounds good. I'll take it."
She taps a key card and slides it across the desk without quite meeting my eyes. Her hands are steady. She looks like someone who belongs here.
I pick up the key card, look at it, then at her. "Thank you."
"Room seven. Up the stairs, second left. Breakfast is at eight."
I go to the room.
Garden view, as advertised. Quilt on the bed. Low ceiling, water through the trees. I stand in the middle of it with my bag over my shoulder.
I leave the bag and go back down.
She looks up when she hears the stairs. Her eyes stay on me as I cross the lobby. She doesn't straighten or brace, just watches and waits.
"Did you need something?" she asks.
"No," I say. "I just…" I touch the back of my neck. "I didn't come here to check in."
She waits.
"I came here for you, because you called, and asked if I wanted to come.
And the answer was yes before you finished the question.
I was in my car before I'd processed it.
" I hold her gaze. "And I told myself on the drive up that I was going to be calm and respectful and give you space.
And then I saw you, and none of that survived. "
"Weston…" Her eyes focus on mine.
"I'm not asking you to come back," I say. "I'm not here to undo what you decided. I heard what you said at the gala, and I understood it." I take a breath. "I'm here because I couldn't stay in Newport one more day in a hotel without you and pretend I don’t care about you."
She's very still.
"I care about you, Monique," I say. "I want to be wherever you want to be."
She looks at the desk surface, then back at me. Her jaw is level. Her hands have come off the keyboard and are resting on the edge of the desk, loose.
"I built something here," she says. "In this room. Without anyone to lift me up. “ Her voice is steady. "I need you to understand what that means." She looks at me. "I can't be someone who only exists in the space around someone else's life. Even yours."
"I know," I say. I come around the side of the desk, so there's nothing between us. I stop two feet from her. "I'm not here to offer you a space in my life." I hold her gaze. "I'm here to ask if there's room in yours."
She looks at me for a long moment. Her eyes move across my face slowly, taking their time, settling and resettling. Her shoulders drop a fraction.
I step closer.
She doesn't step back.
The space between us vanishes. Before she can swallow the rest of her doubts, I close the distance and press my lips to hers. It’s desperate and heavy, a collision that cuts through all the noise, the shame, and the history she’s trying so hard to outrun.
Her face is close to mine, and she's looking at me with the open expression — chin slightly down, the corner of her mouth almost there.
"You drove four hours," she says.
"Four and a half. Construction outside Portland."
"You should have left earlier." Her hands come off the desk and one of them comes up to my chest.
I smile. "I left when you called." I put my hand over hers.
"I don't want to go back without you," I say. "That's the whole thing. I don't want a version of my life that doesn't have you in it, and I'm willing to figure out what that looks like from wherever you are."
She looks at my hand over hers, then at my face.
"I'm staying here," she says. "This job is mine. I'm not leaving it."
"I know."
"And it stays mine. Not connected to you, not absorbed into whatever we are."
"I know that too." I nod and look at her eyes.
"You're going to want to help."
I give her a knowing look and smile. "Probably."
"You're going to have to not."
"I’m trying," I say. "Definitely working on it."
Her chin comes up. "You're terrible at that."
"I just want you to have everything," I say again. "But I'll keep working on it."
She looks at me for one more moment. Then she moves the fraction of an inch that closes the remaining distance between us.
I bring my hands to her face and kiss again.
Unhurried. Not uncertain. The harbor bench and the hotel desk and the pool deck and the gala pavement and four and a half hours of Maine highway, all of it in my hands and her face, without rushing any of it.
She kisses me back the same way.
When we pull apart, her hands are at my collar, and mine are at her jaw.
I put my forehead to hers.