From the linen closet, I grabbed a towel and headed to the bedroom, candle in hand. As I stripped off my wet clothes, I tried not to dwell on the fact that a few feet away, out of sight, Morgan had slipped out of her own clothes, as well. I dried off, then pulled on a pair of jeans and my other button-up shirt. I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and, peeking in the mirror over the dresser, did what I could with my hair. Picking up the candle, I made my way back to the kitchen.
With the power out, the stove was useless, but the chocolate-covered strawberries and wine would still be cool in the refrigerator, along with some of the cheese left over from the picnic. After retrieving it, I sliced the cheese and arranged it on a plate, along with crackers and the strawberries. I had to fish through the drawers to find a wine opener but finally found one and opened the bottle, as well. Taking a pair of glasses from the cupboard, I brought everything to the coffee table. Nervous, I poured myself a glass of wine and took a sip. I wondered whether Morgan would want any.
Beyond the windows, the rain resembled diamond slivers in the unending flashes of lightning. Shadowy palm fronds danced in the wind like puppet figures while I settled onto the couch. Absently rotating the wineglass in my lap, I thought of how Morgan had sounded when she’d whispered my name and wondered what was going through her mind right now. She knew now how I felt about her, but had she known when she arrived at the show? Had she known last night? I didn’t know, and though part of me was nervous at the thought that my feelings might not be reciprocated, I also understood there was nothing I could do to change the way I felt about her.
I wondered, too, if I could have fallen in love had I not come here, to this small town in Florida. Not only with Morgan but with anyone. I hadn’t fallen in love with Michelle, but deep down I knew that our conflicting schedules were only part of the reason. It had more to do with the farm and the all-encompassing nature of the work. Because there was always something to do, I’d somehow lost the ability to simply relax and enjoy life or to make time for someone special. As an excuse it had been a good one, so subtle as to render me unaware it was happening, but as I took another sip of wine, I understood that I had to make changes unless I wanted to end up like my uncle. I needed to allow myself a break now and then—to write songs or go on walks or simply sit and do nothing at all. I needed to catch up with old friends and open myself to new possibilities and people, and the time I’d spent here only underscored that importance.
There was, after all, more to life than work, and I realized I no longer wanted to be the person I’d recently become. I wanted to embrace those things that were important to me and worry less about the things that were beyond my control. Not sometime in the future but starting as soon as I got back home. No matter what happened with Morgan and me, I knew I would reinvent myself as the person I wanted to be. I’d done it before, I reminded myself, and there was no reason I couldn’t do it again.
Rising from the couch, I walked toward the sliding glass doors. Back home, I knew, a storm like this would make me worry about the crops or the chickens or the roof of the greenhouse, but here and now I found the spectacle inspiring in an almost foreign way.
Fate, it seemed, had conspired to make this evening unlike any other I’d spent here, and while there was something perhaps romantic about that notion, I suspected I was reading too much into it. Paige, I knew, would agree with that, but as I continued to take in the thunderstorm, I knew it was something I nonetheless wanted to believe.
Still, I wished that I could have spoken with Paige, if only to ask if what was happening to me was normal. Did love carry with it the power to make a person question everything? Did love make a person want to become someone new? When I thought about Paige and her experience, I wasn’t quite sure. She’d been in love once, but she seldom spoke about it, other than to tell me that love and pain were two sides of the same coin. I understood why she’d said it, but I sometimes caught her reading romance novels, so I doubted she was that jaded. I suspected she would understand what I was going through now. I remembered that once she’d met her husband-to-be, she suddenly wasn’t around much in the evenings, and in the rare times she was, she seemed buzzy and lighthearted. At the time, I was so wrapped up in my own world, I didn’t think much about it, other than to be happy that she and my aunt were getting along. It wasn’t until she announced over dinner that she was leaving the farm that I realized how serious things had become with her boyfriend. A phone call followed not long after she moved away, announcing that she’d been married by a justice of the peace. The whole thing struck me as dizzyingly fast—I’d met the guy just once, and only for a few minutes, when he picked up Paige for a date. One day she was the Paige I’d always known, and the next I questioned whether I’d been living with a stranger my entire life. Now, however, I had an inkling of what she was feeling back then; I was starting to grasp that love followed its own timeline and made even radical changes almost inevitable.
I wished I’d brought in my guitar from the truck. Playing something—anything—would have helped me sort through it all, but given the storm, I decided to leave it where it was. Instead, I found my phone and pulled up a playlist of the songs I had written, the ones I thought were my best. I set the phone on the coffee table and had another drink of wine, then returned to the glass doors, reliving the memories that had inspired each of the songs and wondering what would have happened had my uncle not passed away. I wasn’t sure that I would have stayed on the farm, but would I have attempted to make music a career, in the same way Morgan was trying to do? At the time it didn’t seem possible—and maybe it wasn’t—but I couldn’t shake a newfound sense of disappointment that I’d never given it a try. Morgan’s ambition had ignited something long dormant in me—even as I accepted the idea that she was far more talented than I.
I heard a noise behind me and stole a look over my shoulder. Morgan had returned to the living room with the candle cupped in her hands. She wore a different sundress, with a low scooped neck, and I couldn’t help but stare at her. Her hair, like mine, was still slightly damp, the thick waves glinting in the candlelight. The smudge of mascara on her cheek had vanished, but I saw that she’d applied a little makeup that accented her dark eyes and gave her lips a deep, glossy sheen; her arms and legs glowed like satin. I felt my breath catch in my throat.
She paused a few feet from me, as if basking in my gaze.
“You’re…beautiful,” I said, my voice almost hoarse.
Her lips parted as she exhaled, and I suddenly saw in her unguarded expression that her feelings mirrored my own. Open and hungry, her expression told me everything I needed to know: Like me, she had fallen in love with a stranger, upending both of our lives. Moving to the coffee table, she wordlessly set her candle next to mine. She surveyed what I’d set out, then took a moment to focus on the music drifting from my phone.
“You?” she asked.
“Me,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ve heard this one.”
I swallowed. “It’s not one I usually play at my shows.”
My voice sounded strangely distant, and I watched as she sat on the couch. As I moved to take a seat next to her, her sundress lifted slightly, revealing a flash of her smooth thigh, a sight that struck me as intensely erotic. I motioned toward the wine. “Would you like a glass?”
“I’m fine,” she answered. “But thank you.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry.”
“I had something to eat right after we got back. But I might have a strawberry in a minute. They look delicious.”
“I bought them. I didn’t make them.”
“I’m still impressed.”
I knew I was talking around the edges of things, but it seemed to be all I could do. With my throat going dry again, I took another sip of wine. In the silence, I had the sudden sense that she was just as nervous as I was, which I found oddly comforting.
“The changes you made to the song were beautiful,” she offered.
So are you, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “You were my inspiration,” I said, trying to sound casual but knowing that I failed.
“I wondered….” she whispered, allowing her hair to fall over her face. Then: “I thought about you all day. Missing you.”