Epilogue
The sunrise shining through the windows of the Airstream wakes me up. It’s dappled, pinpricking through the ever-present clouds. I climb out of the bed, and tiptoe from the bedroom, pausing to snatch a blanket off the back of the sofa before letting myself out the door.
Through the trees, a rocky, jagged coastline stretches out, waves crashing on the rocks, sending salty mist up into the sky. The air even tastes salty here on the Oregon Coast, and it’s always a little damp, making my hair frizz, even in my braid.
I love it.
I come out here every morning and sit on a rock surrounded by trees, facing the Pacific Ocean, and watch the sun rise over the blue horizon.
As much as I yearned to travel, I never thought I’d find a sunrise prettier than the ones that crest over the Smoky Mountains.
When Jack and I rang in the New Year in Larkspur, I thought the same thing.
Nothing could compare to sunrise over the Rockies.
Then, after scrolling Amy’s job listings and finding one here, in a small, coastal Oregon town, I was proven wrong again.
I’ve spent every morning of the last nine weeks this way, and I plan to spend every one of the next four doing the same.
Ten minutes later, the Airstream door swings open, and I turn, smiling as I see a sleepy Jack climbing down the stairs.
I never sit out here for long, but I never want to wake him either.
He’s carrying two mugs of coffee, the steam billowing in the chilly morning air.
His jacket hood is pulled over his hair, hiding his bed head, unzipped to reveal the airbrush T-shirt we made in Gatlinburg.
It’s one of my favorite discoveries of the last few months.
Back at the cabin, we never really saw each other before we were made up in the morning, ready for the day, but now I get to see him undone.
He settles down next to me on the rock, pressing a kiss to my temple, and hands me a cup of coffee.
It’s in one of the mugs he got in Fontana Ridge, his coffee in the other.
It makes me smile when we use them, feeling like I have a little bit of home with me, even this far away.
I hadn’t known when I suggested he buy it that I would be the one using it, longing for a little slice of Fontana Ridge.
“Morning,” he says, voice rough. This is another thing I’ve discovered, how he sounds when he first wakes up, like gravel crunching beneath my tires.
I flash him a smile. “Morning.”
He pulls out his phone, and the sunrise reflects off the screen. “I got an email from Amy with placement options.”
We’re going to take one more short contract before heading back to Fontana Ridge, and although I’m excited to go somewhere new, I’m going to miss this little slice of wild paradise.
The crashing of the waves on the cliffs.
The dew clinging to the trees and the damp air.
The way everything here is more green than I could have ever even imagined.
“Anything appealing to you?” I ask.
“I haven’t looked yet.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “Wanted to look with you.”
A smile plays at the corners of my lips.
I find myself doing it a lot. Smiling. At Jack.
Into the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.
At the way the freezing water feels when we run into it in the morning after a run along the sand.
Behind a wine glass as we attempt to look like we know what we’re doing during a tasting. At everything and nothing.
Jack pulls up the email from Amy and leans into me, holding the phone between us. “Pheonix, Arizona. New York City.”
“Could be fun,” I say.
He nods into my shoulder and continues reading, “Cape Landing, Maine. Boston. Nashville, Tennessee.”
“That’s where my cousins live. Could be cool to be close to them.”
He lifts his head. “Want to go there?”
I shrug. “We have time to decide.”
His lips curve in a grin. “That we do.”
When he leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, it doesn’t feel rushed anymore. It feels as easy as breathing. We’re not trying to devour each other, touch and taste as much of each other as quickly as we can. We have all the time in the world.
Jack tastes like coffee and the toothpaste he always uses first thing in the morning before he even finds his way into the kitchen.
His lips are cold from the nip in the air, but they quickly warm from the friction against mine.
He’s smooth as he takes the coffee cup from my hand, depositing it behind us, and lifting me into his lap.
He’s solid beneath me, as steady as he was that first night we met when my world was falling apart.
His mouth never stays on mine for long. He’s greedy for the rest of my skin, his lips trailing over my jaw and neck, his hands finding their way beneath my shirt, pressing against my spine. I gasp at the chill of them, and he returns his mouth to mine, swallowing the sound.
“You better be quiet,” he says. “Or the neighbors will hear you.”
This campground is fairly secluded in the middle of winter, but there are enough people around that I should be embarrassed if any of them were to come out and find me straddling him. I can’t bring myself to care, though.
Not when his mouth is insistent and his hands are confident as they move over my skin, teasing, never reaching where I want them.
“I love the way you taste,” he whispers into the spot behind my ear. The one he discovered always makes me shiver and writhe against him.
I’m about to tell him that I love the way he tastes, too. That I love the way his scruff feels against the sensitive skin of my neck, and how I sometimes find fingerprint-shaped bruises on my hips that make me blush. I’m about to tell him I love him.
But my phone trills in my pocket, an alarm.
I pull back, reaching for it, but Jack comes with me, licking a stripe up the column of my neck. It makes my hands shake with want, my body hum with anticipation.
“You’re going to have to let me go,” I say on a laugh, still trying to pull away from his mouth. He only pulls me closer, settling me more tightly against him.
“No, thanks.”
“It’s time for book club.”
His head moves back, brows sewing together. “It’s six in the morning.”
“Not in North Carolina.”
“It’s nine in the morning there.”
I shrug. “It’s the only time that would work for everyone.”
He lets out a beleaguered sigh that I know is all for show. “Fine, if you must.”
I press a kiss to his jaw. “You have to get ready for work anyway.”
“I could think of much nicer ways to spend my remaining free time.”
My smile widens. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
This makes him smile, too, something soft and tender.
It’s the smile he gives me sometimes when he gets home from a long shift, or when he wakes up in the morning and finds me out on this rock.
It’s the smile that means he’s remembering he’s not alone anymore, that even if one of us leaves, we will always come back together in this Airstream, wherever it’s parked.
“What about Maine?” I ask him. “Finley went once and said it was beautiful. Of course, it was summer then, but I bet it’s just as gorgeous in spring.”
“You’re not sick of seafood?”
“I’m never sick of seafood.” I’ve eaten my weight in crab and oysters washed down with white wine I don’t know enough about to appreciate. Maybe that’s something we can try to do together, my first attempt at a hobby that wouldn’t be on my own. I think it would be more fun like that.
He looks up at me where I’m perched on his lap. The sun is lighting up his cheeks, the cold staining them red. He looks beautiful with his messy hair and Fontana Lake eyes. When I look at him, I never feel far from home.
“I like the sound of Maine.” He leans forward, closing the distance between us, and presses a kiss to the tip of my chilled nose. “But really, Stevie, I’d go anywhere with you.”