Chapter 18
Alex was in the kitchen when Dani found her that evening, halfheartedly assembling something that could generously be called dinner, when she heard footsteps behind her and turned to find Dani standing in the doorway with her laptop tucked under one arm and an expression Alex couldn’t immediately place, somewhere between terrified and determined.
“I figured it out,” Dani said, before Alex could ask. “What I want, I mean. Or at least, what I want to try.”
Alex set down the knife she’d been using, giving Dani her full attention. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to leave today.” Dani crossed the kitchen slowly, setting the laptop down on the island between them, the same island where two folders had started all of this a week ago.
“Honestly, I don’t really want to leave when this booking ends either.
But I know I have to eventually, because Sedona’s real and the job’s real and that part isn’t going away just because I wish it would. ”
“Okay,” Alex said again, quieter this time, bracing without meaning to.
“So I’ve been thinking.” Dani opened the laptop, hands not quite steady, and pulled up something that looked like a scheduling calendar, blocks of color across different weeks, presumably her agency’s booking system.
“What if you came with me? Not instead of your life, not forever, just, to Sedona. To see what it’s actually like. What I actually do.”
Alex went very still. “You’re serious.”
“I’ve never asked anyone this before.” Dani’s voice wavered slightly, and she pushed through it anyway, the way Alex had pushed through her own stumbling offer that afternoon.
“Six years of doing this alone, on purpose, specifically so nobody would ever get close enough to ask. And I’m asking you.
Which terrifies me, honestly, possibly more than anything else that’s happened this week, including the blizzard. ”
“Dani.” Alex came around the island, closing the distance between them, something warm and disbelieving spreading through her chest. “Are you asking me to come with you house-sitting?”
“I’m asking you to try it. See if it’s something you’d even want, before either of us gets ahead of ourselves.
” Dani gestured at the calendar, steadier now that she had something practical to focus on.
“It’s a two-bedroom in Sedona, red rock views, apparently there’s a hot tub, which honestly might be the actual selling point here.
Owners are gone three weeks. I know that’s a big ask for someone with an actual job. ”
“My actual job runs entirely off a laptop and a decent Wi-Fi connection.” Alex said it slowly, turning the idea over as she said it, feeling something shift into place that had been sitting sideways in her chest for years without her noticing.
“I run social media accounts for startups. I’ve been going into an office out of habit, not because I have to.
I don’t think I’ve actually tested how portable it really is, because I never had a reason to. ”
“You have a reason now.” Dani’s mouth curved, hope creeping in despite the obvious effort it took her to let it show. “If you want one.”
“I want one.” Alex reached over, closing the laptop gently, setting it aside so there was nothing left between them but the counter itself.
“I want to see red rocks and a hot tub and whatever chaos comes with actually living the way you live, even just for three weeks. I want to see if this is something real, something we build on purpose, the way Cass told me at her wedding. Not because the storm handed it to us. Because we’re choosing it. ”
“Three weeks isn’t forever.” Dani said it carefully, like she needed Alex to understand the limits of what she was actually offering. “I can’t promise you it turns into more than that. I don’t know that yet.”
“I don’t need forever promised a week into knowing you.” Alex reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind Dani’s ear, steady now in a way that would have terrified her a week ago. “I need someone willing to try. That’s all. Everything else, we figure out as we go.”
Dani let out a breath that sounded like it had been held for longer than just the last few minutes, and closed the last of the distance between them herself, resting her forehead against Alex’s, both of them just breathing for a moment, something loosening in the air between them that had been coiled tight since the kitchen fight the night before.
“Okay,” Dani said softly. “Sedona, then. You and me.”
“You and me.” Alex pulled her into a proper embrace, solid and certain, feeling the last of the week’s tension finally, fully release from both of them at once. “I’ll call my clients tomorrow. Figure out the logistics.”
“I’ll call the agency. Make sure the second bedroom’s actually usable and not just storage.”
“Very romantic. Storage room negotiations.”
Dani laughed, real and warm and entirely unguarded, the sound of it landing somewhere deep in Alex’s chest like coming home.
“You’re the one who fell in love with a woman who drinks swamp juice and travels with a yoga mat and absolutely nothing resembling a permanent address.
Romance was never going to look normal for us. ”
“No,” Alex agreed, smiling into her hair, “I suppose it wasn’t.”
Outside, the last of the storm’s clouds finally cleared entirely, revealing a sky gone brilliant and star-scattered above the mountains, and inside, in a kitchen that had started as the site of an awkward, mortifying mix-up, two women who’d been strangers just a week ago stood wrapped around each other, quietly, deliberately choosing whatever came next.