Chapter Twenty-Two
Ididn’t sleep that night.
As my veins slowly lost their steady supply of espresso, my mind had no choice but to think about Boone irrationally. I’d pulled up our silly selfie on my phone, staring at him like I was staring at a shooting star.
And I am completely aware how ridiculous that sounds.
I miss him.
I hate it.
But I do.
I miss his smile, the way it slowly tiptoes across his cheeks until he’s smiling as if he has a special smile that’s just for me.
I miss the feeling of his hand wrapped around mine.
I miss the way he isn’t afraid to be honest back—to surrender his thoughts to my own.
And I miss his gingerbread latte.
“I need coffee,” I say to myself, looking at the clock on my phone. I still have two hours until I need to be at the airport to fly to Tulsa to spend New Year’s with my brother, Maisy Jo, and the kids.
I snatch up my purse from the small glass table in my foyer before pulling my coat around me and rushing toward the door. In boots, not stilettos. I am not going to get on a plane in shoes that aren’t sensible ever again. But I pause before I can turn the doorknob.
I don’t want to trek down to another disappointing coffee shop where their beans aren’t as bold, and their creamers aren’t as homemade, and their baristas aren’t Boone.
Boone ruined coffee for me.
And if I don’t have coffee, what do I really have?
I know that’s teeter-tottering on the edge of insanity, but also, I’d done crazy things for the love of coffee. I’d almost died, after all. But almost dying had brought me to Boone.
And if I am really pinch-my-cheeks-hard honest with myself, Boone was right.
For thirty-seven years, it’s been me against the world. I’ve always told myself that I’m not afraid of a challenge, but really, when I dig deep within, I’m just not afraid of the things that don’t matter the most. I’m terrified of the things that do.
Boone had seen it. He’d seen that I was scared.
And the strange thing is—he isn’t scared by it.
In fact, he really hadn’t been scared of any part of me, just like my dad was never scared of me, either. Just like how my dad, instead, was in awe of it.
Maybe, just maybe, Boone is a big enough man to love every part of me—the too muchness and the not enoughs. But I’d run away.
It wasn’t Boone that had left me, or pushed me, or even tried to convince me to stay. He’d just let me be me, because he wasn’t against me. He was Team Kate, and I’d quit. On Christmas, no less. I guess that makes me the Scrooge.
My eyes widen, my pulse quickens, and my toes dance in Boone’s wool socks.
“What in the world am I doing?!” I lecture myself. “Kate Everett is a lot of things, but she’s not a quitter.”
I pull out my phone, checking flights to Denver. There’s one flying out in two hours. Within minutes, I have a ticket. Then I push down on my brother’s name.
He answers on the second ring, “Hey, Katydilla. Headed to the airport?”
“Almost, but Kev, I’m so sorry to do this. I’m not coming to Oklahoma,” I say quickly as I rush to grab random pieces of clothes, throwing them in my suitcase. “I have somewhere else I need to be.”
I can practically hear my brother’s lips widen in a smile through the phone. “Atta girl, Kate.”
“I haven’t even told you where I’m going.” I laugh.
“When all this works out, there’s a property going up for sale a couple miles from us. You and Boone should move here,” Kevin says.
“Kev, I don’t even know if this is going to work out.”
“Well, when it does, Maisy Jo and I could use some babysitters,” he teases.
“You haven’t even met the guy,” I argue.
“Any guy that’s able to make Katydilla shrug off her shell isn’t going to be that easy to get rid of. I was worried for a minute. You almost did your famous tuck and roll…”
I interrupt him. “My famous tuck and roll?”
“Like an armadillo, Kate. You’re the one that was obsessed with them. When they fear getting hurt, they roll up in a ball to protect the most vulnerable parts of themselves and roll away,” he quickly explains.
Rolling away. Running away. It’s all the same thing.
But this time I’m not going to do it.
I’m going to run toward something that matters most.
Well, fly toward, and then get into a rental car that is definitely not a shoebox on wheels like Miranda had been.