13. Annie
Chapter 13
Annie
1 Year Ago
May 26 th
I shoulder my way through the door, my arms loaded in reusable shopping bags and my carry-on. The rest of my belongings—everything that has migrated to Marc’s house over the last seven months—are in my car. Or everything I could grab in my haste to get out of there. Two steps inside my tiny house, I lose my grip on one of the bags. It falls to the floor, spilling makeup and various beauty products across the wood surface.
It’s the last straw in a monumentally lousy day. I crumple to my knees, slowly lowering the remaining bags as my stuff spills onto the floor.
Chris is out of the kitchen and by my side in seconds. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his hand warm on my back as he tries to peer at my ducked face.
I sniffle. “Marc asked me to move in.”
There’s a pause and a tight, “The bastard.”
It doesn’t make me laugh, but I grant him an eye roll. “He wants me to sell this place.”
“Ah.” That’s all Chris says as he untangles me from my belongings. When I’m clear, he pulls me to my feet, lifts me over my mess, and nudges me toward the table. “Leave it,” he says when I turn back to my stuff.
He pushes me into a chair, sets a glass of wine before me, and returns to pick up my stuff.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. It needs to be done. This house is too small to leave lipstick, lotion, and hair ties scattered in front of the door.
Chris points at the wine. I sigh and pick up the glass.
Today is an off-day, a lull between the storms we’ve been chasing across the Texas Panhandle and those we’ll chase tomorrow southeast of Dallas. Since I’ve been staying with Marc for the last several months, Chris is staying in my tiny house.
He finishes scooping up the last of my things—a box of tampons that spilled across the floor, which doesn’t make him flinch, laugh, or react at all—and lines the bags up along the wall, out of the way. He returns to the kitchen, stirs something on the stove that smells amazing, and pours another glass of wine before sitting next to me.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” I say sullenly.
Chris doesn’t say anything, just sips his wine and watches me and—
“Fine,” I snap. “But I don’t want you trying to fix this, okay? I know it’s my fault, and I’m being irrational and—”
“I didn’t say that. But I’ll listen if that’s what you want.”
I grumble into my wine. Usually, I wouldn’t want to talk about this at all—not to Chris or anyone. I’d process it on my own, in my own time. But today has been rough, and I feel like I might explode. Letting some of that pressure out would be good.
“Marc wants us to get a bigger place together. To afford that, I’d probably need to sell this house anyway, but he made it a thing.”
“A thing?” Chris echoes when I stop talking.
“Yes, a thing. I’m not fully invested in this relationship as long as I have a backup plan.”
He scoffs. “Please. You? A plan?”
“Exactly!” I know he’s teasing me, but it’s true. I don’t have plans. “I’m not holding onto this house so I can have a place to run to when things get hard.”
He looks pointedly at my bags by the door and lifts an eyebrow.
“Okay, so maybe it looks like I ran tonight,” I say slowly, my brain spinning to explain this. “But selling this house won’t change that. I could crash with my aunt and uncle or drive to Oklahoma and stay with you.”
“Why don’t you want to sell this place?”
“Because it’s my place! I love working in my office and sleeping in a bed where I can look up at the stars all night.” There’s no skylight above Marc’s bed. “It’s a good secondary base of operations.”
He nods slowly.
A beat of silence passes between us, and I know what he’s about to say. He knows I know. It’s in the twitch of his lips. I give him a warning look, and he lifts his eyebrows. Then he breaks. “I can solve your house problem if you want.”
I slap my palm against the table. “I knew it! You can’t help it, can you?” I’m not mad, though. I’m laughing at the sheepish smile he gives me.
“It is a good base of operations. I can afford to rent it if you don’t want to sell it.”
“For three months of chasing?” Most years, we might only use this place once or twice. I know he’s doing well financially, but surely not enough to rent a tiny house he’ll seldom use.
He hesitates, then says, “I chase year round. When the forecast looks promising.”
“Oh,” is all I can manage to say. Without me. The pain is sudden and sharp and so very raw.
“Sorry,” he whispers.
“Alone?”
He shrugs, and no, he’s not alone. Tessa, probably. Other chasers he knows.
I bite my lip and blink back tears. I’d thought that the off-season October chase so many years ago had been a one-off, and if he ever wanted to chase a severe weather set-up outside our season, he’d ask me.
On top of everything else today…
Chris reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezing it. “Hey. I didn’t ask you those first few years because I wanted a break from Justin. After he left, you were traveling for your photography. Jenna wasn’t okay with it, and now you have Marc. I get you from April to June. It’s not fair for me to steal any more of you than I already do.”
I squeeze his hand back, too choked up to argue I’d rather be on the road with him any day of the year than anywhere else. I won’t lay that mess at his feet. Not over a handful of missed chase days every year.
Chris frees his hand and gets up to check on the food. “I made more than enough minestrone,” he says as he pulls two bowls from a cupboard. “Hungry?”
It smells delicious. Chris is a surprisingly good cook, and maybe I can eat. “It’s not soup weather.”
He shrugs. “It’s my comfort food. Not as good as my mom’s, though. She never wrote the recipe down, and I can’t quite get it right.”
I could use some comfort. I wonder why Chris needs it. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His back is to me as he dips the ladle into the pot, but his shoulders are relaxed. I almost believe him.
“Then why the comfort food?”
He carefully empties the ladle of soup into a bowl and sets it down before he says, “I miss her today.”
His mom. Shit, here I am complaining because my boyfriend wants to make things more serious, and Chris is missing his mom. I’m on my feet and wrapping my arms around him from behind before the ladle even touches the soup again.
“I’m sorry,” I say into the back of his shirt collar.
He’s frozen, ladle and bowl in his hands, suspended mid-air. “Thanks,” he says, but it sounds like a question.
I need this hug, as one-sided as it is, more than he does, so I hold on, even after he clears his throat. Just a little longer because he feels so good.
“I’m fine, Annie,” he says, dunking the ladle in the pot. The muscles in his shoulders move under me, and I force myself to let go and slink back to my chair at the table.
“Was it the family reunion?” I ask. Unfortunately for me, our lull in severe weather coincided with a family reunion, and today was my uncle’s turn to host. There was no escaping it—for me or Chris.
“No,” he says, setting a bowl in front of me. It smells so good my appetite comes roaring to life.
We talk about tomorrow’s chase as we eat. By the time we finish, I’m feeling better.
He washes the dishes, and I dry them. The conversation also dries up, but even Chris's silence is pleasant. He pulls the plug in the drain and then turns to watch me dry the pot. “Your parents…” he starts but ends up shaking his head.
“My parents really like Marc,” I finally say.
My mother pulled me aside to tell me how good an influence Marc was on me. If I couldn’t get a real job, at least I had a man who could support me and my hobby. Marc doesn’t make much as a high school counselor, but he has property investments. He apparently felt the need to tell my parents all about that.
I flipped my mother off like the angry teenager I used to be and stormed away, only to find Chris and Marc chatting like old friends over a couple of beers.
I hated it. Knowing I shouldn’t resent them getting along makes me feel worse.
“Eh, fuck your parents,” Chris finally says. “They don’t get an opinion.”
“They don’t,” I agree, “but it annoys the shit out of me that I’ll never be good enough for them, but Marc earns their approval after five minutes.”
Chris didn’t get their approval—not that they said anything to me. I saw it on their faces when he faked a phone call and walked off mid-conversation, beckoning for me to follow him.
It was the highlight of my night.
They'd change their tune if they knew he had a PhD or two and a fancy-ass science-y job. Probably ask him why he bothered letting a dropout loser like me tag along while he was doing critical science-y things.
“I like your dad and your stepmom.” I sigh.
“They like you, too.”
Being with his family makes me feel warm and cozy. They’re perfect. Big, noisy, and teasing, they accept people for who they are, not who they want them to be. I wish I could claim them for my own.
“Bringing anyone special to meet them this year?” I ask.
Chris shrugs. “I’ve gone on a few dates, but that’s on hold until the season ends. If she’s still interested in June, then maybe. I don’t know.”
I hide my frown in my wine glass, but a knock at the door saves me. My aunt sticks her head in, holding out a large Tupperware. “Leftover desserts from today,” she says, ignoring my bags by the door as she sweeps in and drops the container on the table to fold me into a hug. “Love you, hon. Let me know if we’re slashing tires, okay?”
I laugh and promise her no vandalism is necessary as I hug her tighter. She leaves after telling us to stop by the house before we head out chasing tomorrow. When she’s gone, I turn to Chris. “You were sneakily texting her, weren’t you?”
“Maybe,” he says, looking guilty as sin. “I thought you might need a sugar fix. I’ve got nothing.”
I lift the lid. Oh yes. I do need this. Cookies, brownies, bars, and a few slices of pie and cake. Enough to fuel me for the next few days on the road. “Thank you.”
We eat dessert—well, I eat it, and Chris drinks another glass of wine. Then, we retreat to my office, where we spend a good hour reviewing the forecast and arguing over plans. I feel a million times better.
Until Chris yawns, and I realize we need to get some sleep.
I’m not going back to Marc’s place, and I’m too tired to walk five minutes to my aunt's and uncle’s house. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“It’s your house, Annie,” he says. “I’ll grab my sleeping bag and sleep on the living room floor.”
“No, you keep the bed. The recliner is pretty comfortable.”
He continues to protest, but I stand my ground, and he gives up. We take turns brushing our teeth in the small bathroom before he heads up the narrow stairs to the bedroom.
There’s only a low wall to give my bedroom privacy, so I can hear everything as he gets ready for bed, including his soft curse when he bumps his head into the low ceiling—probably in the same spot that often gets me. It makes me laugh, and his voice comes from above, “Goodnight, Annie.”
I stretch out in the recliner and pull the light blanket over myself. “Goodnight, Chris.”
But the thoughts in my head are too heavy to let me sleep. Judging by the tossing and turning happening upstairs, Chris can't fall asleep either. I give up, toss the blanket aside, and walk up the stairs.
Chris watches me as I step into the room. He’s bathed in starlight, lying on his back with his hands under his head like he’d been gazing at the stars. Who needs billions of stars to look at when he’s there?
I sigh and push those thoughts away. “Can I talk some more?”
He shifts over and pats the bed.
It’s just while we talk, so I slip under the light blanket and flop beside him. “It’s hard to talk about stuff,” I say after a long moment when words elude me.
“Is it serious with Marc?” Chris asks in a quiet voice.
That’s what this comes down to. I’ve been comfortable crashing at Marc’s place for so long because it was convenient. But Marc wants to take the next step in a relationship—a step I’ve never made it to before. I have to take it or leave him because staying where we are is no longer an option. My name on a mortgage with Marc’s entangles us in a way I can’t walk out on easily. And he wants to get married someday. Buying a house together will only speed that up.
But what do I want?
I glance at Chris, and I want April through June, every off-season chase, and every day in between, but that’s not for me. If it were, we’d have found our way there sometime over the last seven years. I force myself to look back up at the stars glinting in the clear night sky. A life with Marc would be good. Better than good. He makes me laugh. He’s kind and loving, and he lets me be me. He doesn’t pick fights with me or complain when I take off for some last-minute photography gig. He usually doesn’t ask for more than I can give. I could be happy.
“I love him,” I admit, because I do. Not with my whole heart—I’m painfully aware by now Chris has a larger portion—but with enough of it. Surely, it will shift like an upturned hourglass, all the little pieces falling to Marc’s end one day.
For the longest time, Chris says nothing. I focus on the soft sound of each breath he takes—in and out, perfectly even.
Maybe this season should be my last.
No. It’s half over already, and I’m not finished. My feelings for Chris will be less next year.
“Ask him for some time,” Chris finally says. “He loves you, he’ll understand.”
I nod because he’s right. Marc’s been trying to ease me into this idea for a while, so I shouldn’t have felt so blindsided. He knows I run when I panic. I need time to process. “I’ll swing by his place in the morning and talk to him.”
“We can skip the chase.”
“No.” I need to feel the soothing noise of the road and the miles flying by. Marc will agree to take things slow, or he won’t. Either way, the conversation shouldn’t take more than an hour—plenty of time for us to reach our target.
Chris doesn’t argue. I can’t blame him for not wanting to miss a chase day.
I should return to my recliner, but I don’t. I’d forgotten how comfortable my bed was. How much I love staring up at the stars until my eyelids grow heavy.
Chris doesn’t tell me to go. He doesn’t get up and leave, either. Instead, his hand finds mine, gives me the briefest squeeze, and retreats. “Goodnight,” he whispers. That’s all the permission I need to fall asleep.