Chapter 2 #2
“Two years older. Quiet. Always reading, always writing. He’d disappear for hours to work on something and come back with his hair all crazy from running his hands through it.
” A small smile tugged at her mouth, unbidden.
“Emma used to say he was allergic to small talk. Like, physically allergic. She’d try to make him chat with her friends, and he’d break out in awkward silences. ”
Meg laughed. “Okay. I like him already.”
“He was protective of her. So protective. She was sick a lot—I didn’t understand how sick, not then—and he was always watching, always making sure she was okay.” Livvie’s fingers found her mother’s ring and spun it on her finger. “He really didn’t give me even a second glance.”
Silence, and it betrayed her.
“Until…” Meg asked.
“That last summer. I was twenty. Emma had just finished some experimental treatment, and we were all waiting to see if it took. I was in a sad place—my mom had died about a year earlier, and I just…well, being at Aunt Lila’s always seemed to heal a few wounds, and I just wanted a summer away from the city.
Nate had just graduated from college and was trying to figure out his next move. He came home to be with Emma too.”
“And?”
“We spent most of the summer together, us three. Kayaking. Reading on the dock. One night we sat by the firepit until three in the morning talking about everything—books and dreams and whether it was possible to love someone so much it became its own kind of grief.”
Meg was very still. “And?”
And. “I don’t know. Emma usually got tired before Nate and me, and sometimes, after she went to bed, we would stay by the fire and just sit quietly.
Or we’d talk about something we were reading.
Or just watch the fireflies. Sometimes we’d walk out to the end of the dock and go swimming in the moonlight—”
“This is like a YA romance novel.”
“Except for the romance part. There was this floating dock out on the lake from their house, and one night, about a week before I was supposed to go back to the city, we were hanging out there in the darkness, pointing out constellations. And I thought…well, maybe he didn’t make any moves because he thought it would be awkward.
So I sort of made the move for him. We swam back to the dock, and as he was getting out of the water after me, I stood on the end of the dock and told him that I liked him, and that I didn’t want summer to end, and he just…
he just looked at me, a sort of horror on his face.
And then, for one crazy second, I thought he might kiss me.
He just stood there, those hazel eyes looking at me—I swear I could feel his gaze in every cell in my body. ”
“And then he reached out and—”
“No, then he shook his head, took a breath, and stepped away from me. And said, ‘I like you too, Livvie. But let’s not get in over our heads.’ And then he walked past me into the house, and that was it. He left the next day.”
“Ouch. What did that even mean?”
“It means I totally bumbled it. I’d assumed way too much—he didn’t feel the way I did, and I think maybe they’d found out Emma’s treatment hadn’t worked. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But I got it—that’s my MO. Overstepping. Assuming. Making myself indispensable.”
“You are indispensable.”
Livvie lifted a shoulder. “Tell that to Richard.” And then she picked up the phone and checked.
No texts. Of course.
“The almost-kiss summer,” Meg said softly. “You’ve been carrying this for seven years?”
“Don’t go crazy. I don’t carry it. It was one moment. One almost-moment. I went back to New York. He and Emma kept writing…” Livvie trailed off. “And then Emma got sick again. Really sick. And then she died.”
“And you went to the funeral.”
“I stood in the back of that funeral home, Meg. I stood there for two hours. I watched him across the room, surrounded by people, looking like someone had carved the insides out of him. And I waited. For him to look at me. To need me. To let me in.” Her voice went small.
“He never did. Not once. It was like I wasn’t even there. ”
Meg set down her wine. Crossed to the couch. Sat close enough that their knees touched.
“Livvie. When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“That’s the thing. I haven’t. Not since before Emma died. And now I’m supposed to convince him to write a book he clearly can’t write, and my job depends on it, and—” She laughed, the sound thin and slightly unhinged. “And he won’t even answer my text.”
“Have you called?”
“Twice. Voicemail both times.”
“Emailed?”
“The agency has. Multiple times. Radio silence.”
Meg was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then, “Did you say your aunt lives next door to his house in Maple Lake? And is there any chance you have, say, vacation time you haven’t used?”
Livvie blinked. “I have two weeks, probably more, since I didn’t use any last year.”
“Interesting.” Meg pulled out her phone, typing something. “And this Maple Lake place. They have any events coming up? Festivals? Things that might give a person a legitimate reason to visit?”
“The Flannel Festival.” The words came out automatically. “The third weekend of September. Emma used to run story hour for the kids. It was her favorite thing in the whole—” Livvie stopped. Stared at Meg. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking up flights to Minnesota.” Meg turned her phone to show the search results.
“Because here’s what I’m hearing. You have vacation time.
You have an aunt who lives there. You have a legitimate professional reason to go—your boss literally ordered you to.
And you have two weeks that happen to coincide with a festival your dead best friend used to love. ”
“Meg—”
“This isn’t desperate, Livvie. This is brave. You’re not some random agent showing up to pressure him. You’re someone who knew his sister. Someone who knows what he lost. Someone who might actually be able to reach him when no one else can.”
Livvie stared at her, terribly aware of the fist that had become her heart. Pounding. Expanding and contracting at the same time, like it couldn’t decide whether to hope or panic.
“That’s…crazy.”
“Or…bold.”
“Or overstepping! He didn’t invite me. He didn’t even look at me at the funeral,” she whispered. “What makes you think he’ll see me now?”
“I don’t know that he will.” Meg reached over, squeezed her hand.
“But I know you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t try.
And I know that when you talked about those summers, you lit up in a way I’ve never seen you light up about anything—not your job, not your apartment, not any of the mediocre men you’ve dated in the five years I’ve known you. ”
“They weren’t all mediocre.”
“Brian the conspiracy-theory guy?”
“That was one guy.”
“One guy too many.” Meg grinned, then softened. “Go, Livvie. Visit your aunt. Show up at the festival. And if you happen to knock on the door of a brooding fantasy author who desperately needs someone to remind him how to tell stories…well. That’s just being neighborly.”
Livvie looked at her phone, still silent, still unanswered. Then at the bookshelf, where four hardcovers held years of memories in their cracked spines.
Then at the window, where the golden light was fading into dusk, and somewhere beyond the brick wall and the fire escape and the endless sprawl of the city, there was a lake house in Minnesota where a man sat alone with his grief and his blank pages.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. “Okay. I’ll go.”
Meg whooped, immediately pulling up flight options. Livvie reached for her own phone—not to check for texts this time, but to call Aunt Lila. To tell her she was coming. To set this impossible thing in motion.
And then Meg said, almost casually: “Hey, does Richard suspect?”
Livvie froze, thumb hovering over Aunt Lila’s contact.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, in the meeting. When you said you knew him. Did you mention the summers? Emma? The almost-kiss that we’re definitely going to discuss more later?”
The blood drained from Livvie’s face so fast she felt dizzy. “No. I said I knew him, knew his work. I said I understood what he was going through.”
Meg’s expression flickered. “So he thinks this is professional.”
“It is professional.”
“Is it?”
Livvie opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “If Richard finds out this is personal, he’ll pull me off the assignment. Or use it against me. He’ll say I can’t be objective. He’ll—”
“Okay, okay.” Meg held up a hand. “So you don’t tell him. You go as the concerned junior agent, which you are. Nate Rivers…you’re just doing your job.”
“Right.” Livvie swallowed. “Just doing my job.”
Oh, she could lie with the best of them, at least to herself. She wasn’t going to Minnesota to do her job. She was going to face a man she’d never stopped thinking about, a ghost she’d never properly grieved, and a chapter of her life she’d never had the courage to close.
And if Nate figured out she hadn’t told her boss the truth—that she’d used their history to get this assignment, even if she hadn’t meant to—he’d never trust her.
He’d think she was using him.
Maybe she was.
Livvie pressed Call on Aunt Lila’s number and tried very hard not to think about how many ways this could go wrong.
Nate was wearing the same sweatshirt he’d slept in, which was the same sweatshirt he’d worn yesterday, which—let’s be honest—was the same sweatshirt he’d worn most days since he’d stopped keeping track. The dogs didn’t judge. The mirror did, which was why he’d stopped looking.
But the dog-food bag was empty, and even he wasn’t far enough gone to let Huck and Finn starve. So here he was, sitting in his truck in the driveway, engine off, trying to remember how to be a person in public.