Chapter 17
Alex noticed it properly a few hours later, coffee in hand, standing at the same window she’d stood at that very first morning watching the storm roll in.
The driveway had been plowed at some point overnight, a clean dark stripe cut through white, and beyond it the road itself sat visibly bare in patches, snow banked high on either side but the actual surface passable, drivable, done being a barrier.
“Hey,” she said, and Dani looked up from the couch, something wary flickering across her face at the tone of it. “Road’s clear. Properly clear, I mean. Someone could actually get out today if they needed to.”
Dani set her book down slowly. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Alex turned from the window, arms crossed loosely over her chest, feeling suddenly, uncomfortably aware of every word she was about to choose.
“I know Sedona’s after this. And I don’t know what your agency needs in terms of travel time, or whether you usually stay through the exact end of a booking when there’s another sitter already here, or…
I don’t actually know how any of this works for you. ”
“I usually give myself a day or two of buffer. In case of exactly this kind of thing.” Dani’s voice had gone careful again, matching Alex’s own uncertain tone. “Storms, car trouble. Owners changing plans last minute.”
“Right.” Alex nodded, throat tight, and made herself say the next part anyway, because it felt like the only honest thing to offer given everything Dani had told her the night before about needing room to figure this out.
“So if you wanted to head out early, today even, I could stay. Finish out the two weeks properly, be here when Cass and Marisol get back, explain the whole folder situation to their faces so you don’t have to worry about any of that. ”
“You’d do that.”
“I would.” Alex’s voice caught slightly, and she pushed through it anyway.
“Not because I want you to go. I want to be really clear about that part. I don’t.
But I also don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped here, or like leaving early means choosing against me, or, I don’t know, I’m not saying this well. ”
“You’re saying it fine.”
“I’m saying it badly, actually, because what I mean is I don’t want you to go, and I’m offering to make it easy for you to go anyway, and those two things feel completely insane sitting next to each other in the same sentence.
” Alex let out a short, humorless laugh, rubbing a hand over her face.
“But I meant what I said in the kitchen the other night. I’m not trying to trap you into anything.
If you need space, actual physical space, to figure out whatever it is you’re figuring out, I’d rather give you that than make you stay somewhere you’re not ready to be. ”
Dani was quiet for a long moment, watching her with an expression Alex couldn’t quite read, somewhere between moved and genuinely torn.
“I don’t know what I want yet,” Dani said finally, honest in a way that cost her something visible. “I know that’s not the answer you’re hoping for.”
“It’s the honest one. That’s enough for right now.
” Alex crossed back toward the couch, sitting on the far cushion, careful with the distance, not wanting to crowd whatever Dani was still working through.
“The offer stands, though. Whatever you decide. Today, tomorrow, the actual end of the two weeks. I’ll figure out Cass and Marisol either way. ”
“Even though it’d be easier for you if I stayed the full two weeks. Gave us more time.”
“Easier for me isn’t really the point right now.” Alex managed something that was almost a real smile, tired but genuine underneath it. “I’ve spent three years making choices based on what felt safest for me. I’m trying, very badly, apparently, to make a different kind of choice this time.”
Dani reached over, finally, and laced her fingers through Alex’s, not quite a resolution, not quite anything settled at all, but real contact after a day and a half of careful, deliberate distance.
“Give me until tonight,” she said quietly. “To actually figure out what I want. Not what I’m scared of. What I actually want.”
“Take whatever time you need.” Alex squeezed her hand once, gently, and didn’t let go. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside, the plowed road sat clear and waiting in the afternoon light, patient, indifferent, entirely unbothered by the fact that neither woman inside the house had yet decided what to do with it.