Chapter Sixteen
“Ibooked a flight for the twenty-sixth at six a.m.,” I state as I pull on a dry pair of Boone’s wool socks.
I’m beginning to get used to this very low-key, comfy status I’ve developed in his cabin.
Although, I really wish he would have thought to rescue my bag when he rescued me, if only for the mascara and facial scrub.
“Still going to fly to your mom’s?” he asks.
“Oh no,” I snap quickly. “Straight back to New York, and then I’ll go see my brother and his family for New Year’s.”
Boone nods his head as he stokes the fire. “I heard the roads will be cleared by this evening.”
“Oh,” I mutter. “There weren’t any flights on Christmas Day.”
“I didn’t mean you had to leave on Christmas,” Boone says swiftly before putting the iron poker back in its holder.
His arms are crossed now as he looks down at me sitting on the couch.
I wish I could read his mind, read the script that is typing out inside his head right now.
“I was just letting you know the roads will be cleared. I’ll be able to get you to the airport. ”
I swallow. “Oh, good. Perfect, actually, since I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there. I don’t suppose you have Uber here.”
“Afraid not,” he replies as Dog rubs up against his legs.
My eyes slowly trace upward, from the cat to Boone.
He’s wearing another red-and-black flannel, and I’m positive that if I opened his closet there would be hangers full of the same outfit, but I like it.
In fact, I can’t imagine Boone in anything else, especially scrubs.
It makes me wonder how much of him has changed from who he once was or if he just dresses differently.
“So, have you always had a beard?” I question.
“What?” He uncrosses his arms and strides toward me. I quickly pull my legs up to my chest, twisting to face him as he sits down on the couch beside me. I at least need my legs to be a barrier after all the foolish friction between us today.
“It’s just, I can’t envision you in scrubs.
You don’t seem like the doctor type that would be bending over with a scalpel and murmuring instructions to others around you as you work quickly to save someone’s life under fluorescent light,” I ramble.
“I mean, I can’t see the mask and goggles and the beard exactly going together. ”
Boone’s laugh is more of a sigh. “No, I didn’t have a beard.”
I squint my eyes, trying to pluck Boone’s beard from his face in my mind. I can’t do it. “I can’t see you without a beard.”
Boone reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone. I glance over my knees, watching his thumb as it moves across the screen before he hands the phone over to me. “Here.”
And there is Boone, well, a version of Boone that looks more like a brother or cousin than Boone. His face is clean shaven, but those are his blue eyes. He looks smaller, younger, and yet, when I look at Boone now and Boone then, he still seems joyful, even after what he’s been through.
“Where did you live?” I question as I continue examining the photograph where he’s wearing slacks and a polo, his hands in his pockets, and he’s smiling the kind of smile that you only give to someone you love. I wonder if Becca was behind the camera.
“California,” he answers.
I nod my head. “Your sister is out in California.”
“She is,” he replies.
“Was Becca from California?” I watch Boone as I say her name, to read his expression for any indication about how he feels about me picking at the edges of memories, of his life before.
The lines around his eyes soften. “Yes. I met Becca in college. She was a California girl through and through, and I couldn’t get her to leave even though I’ll always prefer the mountains to the beach.” Then Boone leans over and swipes at the screen. “There she is.”
And she is there, on his phone screen, radiantly glowing, smiling at me.
Tanned skin and legs up to her ears. Long dark hair but highlighted perfectly by the sun or by the expert touch of a fantastic hairdresser.
Her face is thin, lips full, eyes matching blue to his.
Cut-off shorts and a white tank top. “She’s beautiful, Boone. ”
I can picture them together. Their towering heights, dark hair, and impeccable features. They would have had beautiful babies.
But I don’t want to just picture them together, I want to see them, so I find my thumb taking orders from my brain before reason can interfere, and I swipe through the photos until I land on one of them.
Boone’s watching me, not stopping me. Completely at peace with me peeking within what was once his heart, and maybe still is. Or at least, still part of it.
And I was right. A picture of them together, not smiling at the camera but instead at each other, appears. Arms wrapped around waists, heads touching. They had been perfect.
It’s a weird feeling—seeing what was and knowing that it had been completely devastated in one moment.
Boone had a life and had most likely planned out this amazing future with this perfect woman that probably didn’t talk as much as I did, or toe the line when you weren’t supposed to, or laugh at times when it was really inappropriate to do so.
I’ve never loved anyone in that way. The way that you begin to create a scrapbook of memories that could be. I’ve always been what men had said was too much or too controlling or too ambitious or too loud or just too anything.
And I don’t want to compare myself to Becca.
It isn’t fair to me, and it isn’t fair to Boone, and it really isn’t fair to Becca.
She isn’t here to defend herself, to reveal all her own insecurities, to humanize herself.
Instead, she’s an angel, and my brain shouldn’t be figuring out how I compete with that.
But it is. It’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I’ve conditioned it to do.
Everything in life is a competition. It’s Kate Everett against the world after all.
Then my eyes crawl up to the corner of the screen, and I shriek, jumping up from the couch. “How is it already after four?!”
“Is that a problem?” Boone asks with no alarm to his tone as I hand him back his phone.
“I better start working on our Christmas Eve dinner, or we won’t have one.”
Plus, I need the distraction, and cooking is always something that helps me focus on one feeling instead of all the others—hunger.
I start to march toward the kitchen, putting a plan together of what I need to begin with first. I am planning on making a couple ham steaks I found in the freezer that I moved to the fridge last night, mashed potatoes, canned corn, and cinnamon rolls.
It isn’t much, but I think it is a decent meal, considering I’m shopping in Boone’s fridge and cabinet that pretended to be a pantry.
“Can I help?”
I look around nervously. I mean, what else is he really supposed to do? One can only poke at the fire so many times.
“Um,” I utter. “Sure.”
“You don’t really sound sure about that,” Boone remarks, still sitting on the couch. “Haven’t I proven myself worthy after the omelet lesson?”
His comment cracks my lips into a small smile. “Yes.”
“I’ll make you another cup of coffee, too, if bribery works,” he suggests as he stands.
“You know I can’t say no to coffee,” I say while tilting my head at him.
“I know,” he replies. “You’re not so hard to figure out, Kate.”
“Oh, is that so?” I raise my voice, slightly offended that he thinks he has me all figured out.
“None of us really are, if that makes you feel better,” he teases as he reaches me.
And I suppose he’s right. We all like to think we are more complicated than we really are, creating mysteries within the fabric of our being, hoping people find us more interesting than the next person.
But really, we’re all more of the same than we want to admit.
Fears, insecurities, and feelings fluttering beneath our chests.
I can’t fault him for the honesty, not when I pride myself on it.
“I’d feel better if there was a latte with gingerbread creamer in my hand right now,” I mutter as I look down at my empty palms.
“On it.” He laughs as he makes his way to the kitchen first.
I hear the espresso machine grinding beans, and I can’t help but wonder if he made coffee for Becca every morning. What kind of husband he had been. What kind of life he would have had with her.
And if he had a life with me, what would that look like, and would he wonder if it was as good of a life as he had hoped for with Becca…
Again, unfair comparisons, but my brain is wired for it.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Tomorrow is Christmas, and then I’m flying out the next morning. We have thirty-six hours left together. Thirty-six hours is nothing. It’s practically already over.
And yet…life can change in less than that.
Can I be honest with myself for thirty-six more hours? Honest with my feelings? Feelings that feel more like I’m not really scared of being with Boone. I’m scared of what my brother said earlier—the fear he’d unleashed audibly.
Loving someone means taking a risk, and it’s not that I love Boone now, but isn’t that the hope that comes with liking someone? And when you risk love, you risk loss.
Boone had already lost once, and I wasn’t sure I was willing to risk myself or him to that. If he’d even choose to love me when he really got to know me.
He may be right that we’re all not that hard to figure out, but the beginning of something always seems more magical than the middle of it.