Chapter 2 #2
“So you did.” Ethan set down his mug and stood up, folding his blanket.
Adrienne bit her lip, wondering again what irreparable damage she had done to this ‘relationship.’ She was leaving in a few days and would likely never see him again, so what did it matter?
Somehow, though, it did. She hated the idea of him being mad at her.
Then there was a hand in front of her face and she realized he was extending it towards her. Not leaving in a huff as she’d thought, but inviting her to join him. “Can I show you something?”
Adrienne nodded and followed him back up the path towards the main building.
Once there, he let her into a locked room and it turned out to be an office.
Lani’s office, she realized, based on the layers of dust on many of the surfaces.
She could see that some things had been moved around, probably him looking for things to run their business, but there were other things totally left alone.
Like the many photographs on the walls, on the desk in picture frames.
A number of photo albums on the bookshelf, one of which he pulled down and blew the dust off of.
Lani had been beautiful, Adrienne realized.
She saw the vivaciousness of Ava reflected in the smile, in the eyes, though Ava looked more like a feminine version of Ethan.
She flipped through pages and saw mother and daughter in photo after photo, with Ethan making a few guest appearances here and there.
When she looked back over at Ethan, his eyes were full of torment.
“You see? They were two peas in a pod. How can I fix this?”
Adrienne gently closed the book and set it down. “If I was around longer and could photograph you and Ava now, I could make a book just like this and maybe you’d actually see.” She touched his shoulder gently. “You are enough, Ethan.”
He swallowed hard and she realized in that moment, that people were so wrong about crying.
The panic, the instant worry about blotchy skin, the imperfections that inevitably came with losing yourself to emotions.
Watching Ethan in this moment, trying in vain to hold it together, the slow rise of the flush in his face, culminating to a red nose and the watery tears forming in the dark orbs behind those long lashes…
he was beautiful. She knew in an instant that the pin-ups of magazine photos of actors and boy bands that people put in their lockers at school, had nothing on this very real man in front of her, and something inside her changed.
Adrienne took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him, not knowing what else to do in this moment of unfamiliar panic.
She knew she couldn’t do what she wanted to, which was to touch his face, touch his tears and desperately kiss away all remaining remnants of the grief that had overtaken him.
It not only wasn’t her place, they barely knew each other and the reason this man was grieving…
. No, a random woman kissing him at that moment was probably about the worst thing to imagine.
His arms wrapped around her as well and she felt his body wrack with sobs as she felt his face bury into her neck.
Her own tears spilled over, wishing she could do something…
anything…for this man. She clutched him tighter, as if this would will his pain away.
The warmth of his body next to hers made her shamefully aware how long it had been since she’d been close to another human like this. Especially a man.
If this had been a year earlier, she would have gone home afterwards and confessed with a blush to her father about how she’d held a sobbing man and had wanted nothing more than to lead him to bed and wrap him up with all the love and comfort a woman could offer.
He’d surely laugh with her, give her some piece of advice that would make her laugh and blush even more, then suggest she go to a church BBQ or something to see if she could meet a nice man.
But it wasn’t last year and her father wasn’t around to tell this to.
No one was. Suddenly Adrienne wondered if this was a trip she would always remember and always regret, or if it was a catalyst to something new in her life.
It was terrifying to think that she had to figure this all out on her own, without any help or advice, and she found herself turning her face just slightly.
She inhaled the manly scent of Ethan, deciding, as untimely as it was, to enjoy the moment of being with this man who had tiptoed into her soul.
If nothing else, this memory could sustain her dreams for a long time.
Some time later, she felt the moment he was drained, the moment he came back to himself, and the way his shy awkwardness slid back into place.
Adrienne pulled away and looked at him firmly, letting him see her own tear streaked face, ruined she was sure, wordlessly trying to tell him it was ok.
That this was nothing to be ashamed of. His eyes locked with hers and she lost herself in their depths, his awkwardness turning to a question to confirm she wasn’t mad at him. No. She wasn’t mad. She loved him.
Adrienne felt that thought come to her mind unbidden and she jolted away from him, letting go, and feeling his arms fall away. His gaze broke from hers, the moment gone, all self-confidence floating away.
“I’m really sorry.” Ethan cleared his throat and turned away, to wipe his face. “This was…it’s…”
Adrienne batted at her own nose, reeling from that realization that had slammed into her and trying to remember to breathe.
You just met the man, Adrienne, this is not some romance novel, what are you doing?
He’s a real man, and he’s hurting and you’re what, going to take advantage of him?
?? He’s got a daughter, he’s got a life and it has nothing whatsoever to do with you. This is not a game, it’s not….
Words floated into her consciousness and all thoughts seized as she tried to piece together what Ethan was saying.
“...you’re a guest…worth the worst star review…
should give you a full refund…so unacceptable…
I understand if you just want to leave…” The world came back into focus as Adrienne broke out of her thoughts to realize Ethan was standing in front of her, staring at the floor in front of her feet, wringing his hands in agitation as he spoke.
“No.” Adrienne barked and Ethan looked up at her in surprise. “Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but whatever it is, it’s wrong.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“I just…I don’t want you to think that anything about tonight is wrong, or shouldn’t have happened.
I’m not…it’s not…” Adrienne reached into her brain, willing some of the author she knew she had in there to come out, but words failed her.
She took a deep breath. “Thank you for opening up about your past, and you…” Another breath.
“Thanks for opening yourself to me tonight.”
His eyes locked with hers again, as if saying to her, but you jerked away from me when I was the most vulnerable.
“I really look forward to our dinner tomorrow.” Adrienne finished, simply, knowing at least that truth could come out of her mouth, since she had no words yet to formulate and phrase what had really happened.
The hurt, the confusion, in his eyes softened and he gave a small nod. “I look forward to it as well.”
Adrienne started to back out of the room. “And I’ll tell you about those Christmas lights at home too.”
“Please do.”
She reached the door and gave him a small smile as she turned around and left, trying not to look like she was fleeing.
But she was fleeing. And when she returned to her cabin, door closed firmly behind her, mind roiling with feelings and self-deprecation she didn’t know how to handle, she realized she’d left her sandwich somewhere.
Adrienne hadn’t slept much, but she was nothing if not determined. She’d promised Ethan she’d write, and she was not going to show up to dinner proverbially empty handed.
Especially not now. He’d already opened up to her more than she suspected he’d opened up before, and she wasn’t about to show up shrugging that she hadn’t even tried.
That and Herman, (seriously, she needed to rethink that name) was in the process of enjoying Christmas.
Wearing a jacket and wrapped in a blanket to shield against the colder weather that was coming in, Adrienne tapped away at her keyboard as Herman bought a tree and hung all of the decorations full of memories on it.
No reader would ever want to read the backstory to each ornament as she described them, she knew, but this story wasn’t about the readers, was it?
Herman remembered the ornament making kits they had gotten when he was ten, and how his cousin had pinned sequins to a gold boot, how his mother had wrapped a gorgeous red velvet ribbon around her bulb.
His own ornament was simpler, with odd decorations in each quadrant, decidedly not pretty, nor following any structure.
He didn’t remember what he was thinking as he’d pressed the pins into the bulb as a child, but it tracked, he thought.
Unlike their sleek ornaments, that looked so complete and full of finesse, his had a lot of white space, like a canvas full of random things that never quite equated to a complete piece.
It was like how he felt about himself: a man who didn’t quite fit in with the others, but who had potential to grow in ways that even his family members would never quite achieve.
“Ms. Croft!” She looked up with a smile, to see Ava, wrapped up in puffy winter gear, leading a couple towards her cabin. Lani’s parents, Adrienne presumed, as she closed her laptop and stood to greet them.
“Good morning, Miss Ava!” She wrapped the little girl into a hug and the girl looked up at her with woeful eyes.
“I have to leave a day early,” Ava looked mournful.
Adrienne looked over the girl's head and the woman smiled at her, holding out her hand. “Hi, I’m Helen, Ava’s grandmother. We decided that due to the impending storm, we’d just leave today, rather than stay overnight and leave tomorrow.”
“I’m Adrienne,” She shook the woman’s hand and greeted the elderly man next to her (Henry, as he was introduced to her), before turning back to Ava. “It’s ok. You’re going to have a great time with your grandparents aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but now we won’t get to finish decorating andI’llnevergettoseeyouagain!
” Ava threw her arms back around Adrienne and her heart sank as she realized she hadn’t quite worked this reality out in her head either.
It had been such a fun past few days, decorating with the young girl, feeling that Christmas spirit again, that she hadn’t put together that when Ava left, it would all be over.
Frankly, she hadn’t even quite faced the reality of leaving Ava at all, though she intuitively knew she’d be flying out in two days, not to mention the mental breakdown she’d had the night earlier over all things Ethan.
“It’s ok, Ava. We had so much fun putting up what we did, right? And the place already looks so good, I don’t even know what we could improve on.”
The little girl’s lip wobbled. “I drew up plans for the dining room…but I guess that can wait for next year.”
Adrienne gave a smile bigger than her heart felt at the moment. “Exactly. And you’ll have almost a whole year to tweak them and make them just so.”
“But you won’t be here.”
Adrienne looked up at Ava’s grandparents, who were watching her with a mixture of interest and concern. “Well, you’re probably right about that. I will likely be at home, decorating my own house, but that’s a whole year away. A lot can change.”
Ava’s eyes snapped to hers. “Do you mean that maybe you might consider coming back?”
“I would consider it.” Adrienne smiled. “I’m not promising I will, but I have to say, this has been a really nice place to visit. So it’s a solid maybe.”
Ava wiped away a tear and grinned. “A maybe is better than a no, that’s what Gramma always says.”
“I do say that,” Helen smiled at her granddaughter fondly.
“I promise that I will leave my phone number and email with your father, ok? And if he says it’s fine, then you can always contact me whenever you want to. Does that sound good?”
“Pinky promise?”
“Pinky promise.” They solemnly linked pinkies and then embraced again.
Adrienne noted the look of shock on Helen and Henry’s faces, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask why.
She was determined to enjoy the moment of having this little girl in her arms, knowing full well that she may never see her again.