18. Hunter #2
"Can she come to breakfast every day?"
I turned to look at Jess. ”That's up to her."
Jessica's arms tightened around my waist. Her face pressed harder into my chest. I could feel her grin through the fabric. "Every day, Maisie. You're stuck with me."
The kitchen exhaled. Clay took a breath. Callie went back to whisking. Wyatt picked up his coffee. The conversations resumed — slowly, then all at once, the family folding around the new information the way families do, absorbing it into the noise.
Mom turned from the stove. Her eyes were wet. She pointed the spatula at Jessica. "That's his good henley."
"I know," Jessica said. "It's mine now."
Mom laughed. The kind that made every person in the kitchen turn toward the sound of it. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Breakfast in five. Sit down, both of you."
Jessica pulled back far enough to look up at me. Her hands on my chest. Her face open and warm. I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. My thumb traced her cheekbone.
"Every day?" I said. Quiet. Just for her.
"Every goddamn day."
She came back to the apartment that afternoon.
"I've never actually been up here in the daylight." She leaned against the doorframe. One boot crossed over the other. "I'm conducting a long-overdue inspection."
I stepped back. She came in.
The apartment was small. The kitchen counter with the coffee maker and a single mug drying on the rack.
The chair by the window. The bed — unmade now, the sheets still tangled from where we hadn't slept in it, and she looked at the bed this time.
She looked at it, her mouth curved, and she moved on.
She wandered. Opened a cupboard — two plates, two bowls, four glasses. Closed it. Moved to the window. Looked out at the ranch.
"It's a good view."
"It's the same view."
"I know. That's what makes it good."
She turned from the window. Her eyes swept the room. And then she stopped.
The shelf.
Against the far wall, between the window and the closet.
Three rows of books — worn spines, faded covers, the kind of wear that comes from being handled.
She crossed the room. Her head tilted. She read the spines without touching them — her eyes moving left to right, her lips parting as the titles registered.
She picked one up. The Dolomites. The spine creaked when she opened it. She turned a page. Her finger traced a photograph — a trail cut into a cliff face, the valley falling away below. She touched the corner I'd folded. Pressed it flat with her thumb. Set the book down.
Paris. London. Australia. The Great Ocean Road. The Scottish Highlands. Japan. She ran her fingers along each spine. The touch was careful. The touch of a woman who understood she was handling something she hadn't been invited to see.
I stayed quiet. My hands had curled into fists at my sides.
My shoulders were rigid. My jaw tight. Something in me ached differently from every other ache — the ache of being seen in the place I'd hidden.
Nobody had stood where she was standing.
Nobody had touched those spines. The books were the wanting I'd kept sealed for years.
She looked at me. Her eyes were bright. Her chin was doing something she was fighting to control. Her hand was still on the Australia book.
"How long have you had these?"
"A while."
She sat down on my floor. Crossed her legs. Opened the Italy book in her lap. Looked up at me. Her eyes were wet, and her voice was steady. "Tell me what you want to see."
My throat tightened. I stood in the doorway, and the question sat in the air between us.
I sat down beside her. My back against the bed frame. Her shoulder against mine. The book open between us. My hands unclenched.
"The Dolomites." My voice was rough. "The Alta Via trails.
They run along the ridge lines — high, above the tree line, nothing but rock and sky.
There are refugios along the route. Stone huts at altitude.
You sleep at two thousand meters, and in the morning, you open the door and you're above the clouds.
She turned a page. A photograph — a trail along a ridge, the valley falling away, light breaking through the peaks. Her finger traced the trail.
"Paris. Not the tourist parts." I turned to a dog-eared page.
A narrow street — early morning, grey light, a boulangerie with the door open and flour on the step.
"The Marais. Six in the morning. Before anyone wakes up.
The bread is still warm. And the bridges at dusk — the Pont des Arts.
The light hits the river, and the whole city turns gold. "
Her head tipped toward mine. Her hair brushed my jaw.
"London on a grey morning. The kind of grey that makes the whole city look like it was built for photographs.
" I opened the London book to a page I'd turned so many times, the corner was soft.
The Thames at dawn. "And the Great Ocean Road.
You drive along the coast, and the cliffs drop straight into the sea, and the rock formations are standing in the water like the land couldn't hold on. "
My hands were shaking on the pages.
"The Great Barrier Reef. Before it —" My throat closed.
"Before it changes any more than it already has," she said. Her hand found my knee.
"Yeah."
Her shoulder pressed harder against mine.
"I have a list," she said.
"Of course you do."
"Shut up." Her voice cracked on the shut. "I have a list. I never wrote it down, but it's in my head. The Dolomites. Paris. The Great Ocean Road." The accent was bleeding through. "A decade in New York, Hunt. A decade. And I never once stopped long enough to book a flight that wasn't for business."
Her fingers tightened on my knee.
"The same places. God, Hunt. The same places."
My hand covered hers. Her fingers turned and laced through mine.
"We should go," she said. Quiet. The book still open. Her eyes on mine. "To all of them. London. Paris. Australia."
My hand tightened on her hip. My throat was thick. "Yeah. We should."
She cupped the side of my face. Her thumb traced my cheekbone. She held me there and kissed me. Soft. Slow. Her lips pressing against mine — warm, dry, the lightest pressure. My hand on her hip. The taste of her mixed with the dust of old pages.
She pulled back. Her hand still on my jaw.
"We're going, Hunt. All of it. Together."
I turned my head. Pressed my lips against her palm. Held them there.
The evening light stretched across the floor. The books lay open around us. Her palm warm against my mouth. The shelf no longer mine alone. The wanting no longer sealed. The books open and the woman here, and both things together filled the room with something warm and wide and new.