42. Pa rum pum pum pum
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
pa rum pum pum pum
Ifeel like a kid again, waking up and knowing in my bones the second my eyes open that snow is waiting for me outside.
When it snows, the light that squeezes past the blinds is different, and there’s a quiet suspense in the air, like the whole world is holding its breath.
It started snowing yesterday evening, and I guess it kept going all night because the world is coated in a layer of white.
It’s still a week away, but at least my last Christmas in Massachusetts should be a white one. With how cold it’s supposed to stay, I don’t see this melting before then.
My phone buzzes on my nightstand. It’s Forrest. I sit up and answer the call.
“Hi,” I say cheerfully. I didn’t expect to hear from him yet. It’s very early, and he’s going to come by after work later today to tell me how the exam went. Yesterday, he said he wanted to tell me in person, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. “Is everything ok?”
“It is,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his words. “But it’s very cold out here. Can you please come downstairs and let me in?”
“Let you…? Oh!” I fly out of my bed, giving Jigsaw a minor heart attack—that poor cat has a chaotic life being tied to me—and run down the stairs, sliding on the floor and opening the door before hanging up.
Then I’m in the air, crashing into Forrest, who catches me and walks us back inside. His cheek is cold against mine, and his hand is ice on my back where my shirt rode up, but I couldn’t care less.
“You’re here,” I murmur against his chest. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“They told me I can come in at lunch because of yesterday’s test,” Forrest says as he sets me down.
“Oh.” I hesitate. Does that mean it was bad news? “Was it…?”
Forrest smiles. “The official score report will come later, but provisionally, I passed.”
I scream and fling myself at Forrest again. Jigsaw, who had collected enough courage to come down the stairs seems to regret that decision, turning and sprinting back up to my bedroom.
“I’m so proud of you,” I say.
“That’s not why I’m here though. I have something to show you,” Forrest says. “Go put something warmer on.”
I look at him with confusion.
“We do stuff like this in the treehouse,” he says.
I hurry upstairs and throw sweats on right over my flannel pajamas. When I get back downstairs, Forrest is in the kitchen, slipping something in his back pocket.
“What’s that?” I ask, nosy as ever.
“Backup,” he says ominously before opening the side door for me.
I shove my feet into my boots and follow him out.
When I start climbing the ladder, Forrest laughs quietly.
“I’ve never gotten to tell you how fantastic of a view this is,” he says from below me.
I don’t have a chance to tease him back because I’ve reached the floor of the treehouse, and the glow of about a thousand lights is shining back at me.
Nearly every open inch of space is covered in little potted cacti and succulents, a string of tiny rainbow twinkle lights draped from one to the next.
I pull myself up, careful not to disturb any of the plants, and look around in awe. Forrest appears at my side a moment later.
“Forrest, what’s all this?” I ask, finding him grinning at me.
“I know it’s not Christmas yet, and filling the treehouse with something is really the birthday tradition, but it just felt right,” he starts. “This is me telling you I support whatever you want to do with the DCU job.”
I lean over, moving awkwardly in the cramped treehouse and kiss him. It’s really too small for us, even without fifty mini potted plants. Forrest sits cross-legged, and I curl up, half on top of him.
“Forrest, I want to take the job,” I whisper, craning my head so I can look up at him from where my cheek is pressed against his shoulder.
He smiles wider.
“I know you do,” he says, running a hand through my hair. “And I think that’s wonderful.”
“I need you to know it’s not like last time.
I’m not running away. I’m running toward something I think can be really great.
Not just the job, but Arizona. I didn’t realize how badly I missed it.
How much I love it out there. And I know there are a lot of moving pieces here, but if you want to, I want you to come with me,” I say.
It’s a huge ask, but I need him to know I want him in my life.
“Well, it’s a really good thing you said that because I was planning on coming anyway.” Forrest tips my head further back with a finger under my chin and kisses me again.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I feel Forrest’s rumbling laugh through my body.
“Exactly what I said.” His eyes are so bright when he looks down at me. “If you go, I go.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, wanting to scream and jump around, but needing to make sure Forrest wants this too. This feels like the part where a shoe should be dropping. It can’t be this easy, can it? “What about your job?”
“What about it?” Forrest shrugs. “It’s a job. There are jobs in Arizona. I’ve actually been looking at some of them.”
“What? Since when?” I lean back, furrowing my brow in confusion.
“Since that first day of your workshop. Jason and I had been chatting for a bit before you came out, and from how he was talking, I could tell he wanted you to stay. And after seeing you out there?” Forrest shakes his head with a soft smile, like he’s picturing it.
“Cam, I’ve never seen you thrive like that.
It’s like being out there woke you up. It was obvious that you love Arizona.
So, while you were teaching, I poked around and looked at some architecture firms. Checked out the process for transferring my license once I get it… Just in case.”
“You did that for me? Even though we just got back together?” Even as I’m asking it, of course he did. That’s Forrest.
“I let you go last time, and I don’t intend to make that mistake again,” he says simply. “We can figure the rest out. And we might have just gotten back together, but I’ve loved you for almost my whole damn life. That isn’t going to change.”
He jostles us as he reaches into his back pocket for the thing he stuck in there before. It’s the notebook he’d lent me on the way to Arizona. He pulls off the binder clip I’d added to protect his privacy and flips open the front cover.
It’s a journal entry from over a year ago.
I saw Cam again today, and it was better than I could have imagined.
For one, she didn’t slap me. For another, she’s just as incredible as I remember.
I feel like such a fucking idiot for letting things go so long without trying to find her.
I can’t change the past, but I’m never letting her go again.
I glance up at him when I finish reading the rest of the entry. He turns the page. There’s another. And another.
I think Cam changed her shampoo. It smells like oranges, and now I can’t have fruit without thinking of her.
Cam made me ask another woman out today. It was horrible.
When Cam laughed today, I nearly told her I love her.
I would follow Camilla Rose Viottolo to the end of the earth.
“Forrest…”
“I told you it’s always been you,” he says, closing the notebook.
“We’re doing this?” I ask.
“Yeah. We’re doing this,” he says.