Piper
I drive up Ridge Road with Owen's notebook on the passenger seat. I still bring it. I think I always will.
Slade calls every night. Has since I drove back to Denver the first time, the photograph tucked into the visor and his voice on speakerphone for the first hour of the drive. He doesn't prompt — just calls. Seven-thirty, after his shift. I pick up every time.
He's been on two SAR callouts since I left. I waited through both from three hundred miles away. The anxiety is new. The love is less new.
His text comes at the base of the switchbacks: SAR callout cleared. I'll be at the Summit.
Seventeen switchbacks. I counted the first time. I don't count anymore.
The aspens on the lower slopes have turned and the peak catches the last of the afternoon light the way it did in August. Owen would have narrated every bit of this. I grab the notebook and go inside.
Slade is at the bar. He stands when I come in, which he always does, which I will never get used to.
Dottie doesn't ask if I'm staying. She walks us to the back corner booth.
I haven't sat here before. Older, more worn, the wood dark with decades of the same hands on the same surface. There are initials carved into the inside edge of the bench. Five sets. I run my finger across them.
"Your family's table," I say.
"Fridays," Slade says. "Since we were kids."
A booth that seats six with four empty places.
I slide in. I set Owen's notebook on the table between the carved initials.
Dottie comes back with two glasses and a third. Sets them down without comment.
My throat tightens.
"Does she always do that?"
"First time," Slade says.
"I love you," I say. "Owen brought me here. The rest is mine."
He looks at me across the worn table.
"I know," he says. Then, "I love you. I've known it since before I deserved to."
"You deserved it," I say. "You just needed time to catch up."
I set my hand over his on the table. His fingers turn under mine and hold.
Owen would have been insufferable about this.