8. Hugo #2
Elsie is here, she’s laughing at something Corey said, her hair loose, her hands wrapped around a glass, and she looks like someone who belongs here, which she does, even if she has not decided that she wants to stay.
I watch her from across the room, unable to pull my gaze away from her.
Then I stop watching and cross the room. The table goes slightly quieter, but I ignore all the glances of my men, and I reach for Elsie’s hand.
She looks at it, then at me, her eyes wide with surprise. "Hugo," she says quietly, but gets to her feet and we move away from the table, everyone watching us.
"I'm not good at this," I say.
"At public hand-holding?"
"No, at having everyone watch me," I tell her honestly.
"I'm not ashamed of you," I say. "I'm not unsure, I'm not going to treat this like something that only exists when nobody's watching.
" I look at her. "I’m falling for you, Elsie, and I want you to stay here in Forge Creek and try this with me.”
She stares at me, tears filling her eyes. "You picked a very public place to learn communication," she says.
"I needed to show you that you matter, that I’m not embarrassed, and I want you.”
She looks at our hands, and then back at my face.
"I fell for you somewhere between the bridge folder and the creepy cabin," she says.
"It wasn't creepy."
"Hugo..."
"Elsie."
"I’m falling for you too," she says.
I move closer, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, she sinks against me and kisses me back. I ignore the cheers from my crew. Asses.
I just hope that this isn’t goodbye. She’s supposed to go home any day now and I don’t want her to leave, but that’s a decision for her to make and I can only hope that she wants to stay.
I can hear her on her cell as I get out of the shower. Since the night we spent together in what is now known as the creepy cabin, we’ve not spent a night apart, I’ve always kept a go-bag in my truck just in case, and it’s been used a lot since the night in the cabin.
She hasn't packed her bags yet, and last night we stayed in my home. She seems comfortable here and I love that. I've dreamed of her living here and being the superstar writer that she is from here in Forge Creek.
I exit the bathroom, and see that she’s sitting at the table with her laptop open, a coffee cup beside her, no doubt it’s cold by now, it usually is, it’s a habit of hers that I’m never going to fix. She’s no longer on her cell but is typing on her laptop. She’s writing.
"I can write anywhere," she says, without looking up, when she hears me come in.
I steel myself, I guess this is the moment we’re finally talking about this. "I know."
She’s silent for a moment. "I've been thinking about staying."
Relief unlike anything that I’ve ever felt hits me like a wave. I push out a breath and smile. "I know."
She looks up, her eyes narrowed. "You don't seem surprised."
"You haven't packed."
She laughs. "I came here because I was running," she says. "I ran straight into you, and I’m done running, I feel as though I found home."
"No more running,” I tell her and nod toward the back of the house. "There's something I want to show you."
I cleared the spare room last week, I didn’t know how to mention it, so I didn’t.
I hoped that it would come in useful, so I moved the storage boxes to the garage, cleaned the windows, and put in the desk that has been sitting disassembled in the shed for two years.
I found a good desk chair that is a cream color, and I ran a power strip along the wall.
There’s a brand new stack of sticky notes on the desk, because she uses them like they’re going out of fashion and out of the window is the best view of the ridge in Forge Creek.
Elsie stands in the doorway, her eyes wide as she takes in every inch of the room. "Hugo," she whispers.
"It's not fancy," I say. "But it's yours if you want it."
She walks to the desk, running her hand along the surface, she laughs when she sees the stack of sticky notes. "You made me an office," she says.
"You need a proper desk, the cabin table is too low."
She turns around and I see that her eyes are bright, and I can see that she's close to tears. I hate that she’s going to cry, it feels like something in my chest is coming loose.
She laughs instead, and I pull in a relieved breath, she crosses the room and kisses me, I slide my hands along her waist and pull her closer.
"I fixed chapter twelve," she says, when she pulls back.
"The one with the brown eyes."
She goes still, those gorgeous eyes of hers wide. "You remember that."
"I listen."
She narrows her eyes at me, then reaches past me for the laptop already open on the desk. “Listen to this,” she says.
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“You do.” She clears her throat, far too pleased with herself. “He didn’t think he was a hero, not really, heroes saved the world, he just fixed what was broken.”
My jaw tightens before I can stop it. “No,” I say.
Her smile drops. “No?”
“That’s me.”
Her lips twitch and I see the mischief in her eyes. “I never said it was you.”
God, this woman. “Elsie.”
“What?” She looks down at the screen, all innocent looking. “It’s fiction.”
She’s crazy if she thinks I don’t know it’s me she’s writing about. “It’s not subtle.”
She grins wide and bright. “It’s romantic.”
I sigh. “It’s inaccurate.”
Her smile softens. “No, Hugo. It’s not.”
"Still not a hero," I say.
"You're mine," she says. "That counts."
She came to Forge Creek to hide, I know that, but she’s not hiding now.
She’s in my house, at the desk I cleared for her, wearing one of my shirts and arguing with me about whether I’m a fictional hero or not.
I’ve spent my life fixing things; roads, bridges, washed-out shoulders, and broken culverts. All the problems no one else wanted to carry, because that’s what I do, that’s who I’ve always been.
But Elsie was never something to fix, she was never a problem, and she was never a mistake.
She was something to choose and someone to keep.
So I do, every damn day.