“He’s scared, Natalie.” Bill follows me in with his hands in his pockets. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but what do I have to lose?” He laughs a little.
“Scared?” I grab a cookie off the plate and sit at the kitchen table. “He could just join the club. He didn’t have to fly to Wyoming.”
“The day he saw you at Atkins as he was unloading his truck . . . boy, it was like he’d seen a ghost.” Bill sits next to me with cookies for himself.
“Tell me about it,” I snort.
“Anyway, over the last few months he’s talked to me a hundred times about if he should ask you out to dinner, or what.”
Picturing strong, sure, Ryker asking his dad for advice about something like asking me to dinner makes me grin. “Your son’s a gentleman, Bill . . .”
“I know he is, Natalie. I told him to go for it because, you know, I love you to death. But,” Bill rolls his eyes with a grin, “that boy knows something I don’t.”
“What’s that?”
Bill rests his hand on mine. “You. He knew you were struggling, and he knows how struggle feels, and damn it if he didn’t want to help you, Nat, I swear. But, I don’t think he trusted himself to be around you a lot, you know? He didn’t want to make a mistake he’d regret later.”
“So he runs away to Wyoming for three months?” I spit out sarcastically.
“Men.” Bill shrugs.
Keeping Bill’s analysis of Ryker’s actions in the back of my mind, I move on and talk to Bill about the last few months. He seems happy that I’m working and listens with misty eyes as I tell him about George and Marion Frank and my time with them at the Soldiers’ Home. By the time I’ve rattled off everything under the sun, my loneliness is long gone and it’s approaching midnight.
“Geez, Bill, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late.” On cue, I yawn, standing to stretch.
“Any time, Natalie. I mean that, okay?” I know that Bill probably knows all of my issues between discussions he’s had with Ryker and my dad, but I’m glad he doesn’t bring them up, just the same. “Before you go,” he reaches by me and grabs something off the island, “this is for you.”
“Bill, you didn’t have to—”
“I was going to mail it to you, then I ran out of time, and . . . well, let’s just call it good fortune that you showed up here tonight.”
“Let’s.” Wrapping my arms around Bill, I feel a hint of Ryker resting in his broad shoulders. Those two men are built nearly identically.
Bill kisses my cheek before holding me at arm’s length. “Don’t open that until you get home, okay, Honey?”
“Sure thing. Night, Bill.”
Despite the spotty cell service Ryker told me he would have at the camp, I decide to send him a “Merry Christmas” text anyway. Before heading home, there’s one more stop I have to make.
Well after dark, and through five inches of snow, I find it.
Lucas J. Fisher.
I whisper, because that’s how you speak in a cemetery. When you’re not yelling and crying, I suppose.
“I’m taking advantage of the fact that it’s Christmas night and no one would force someone from the grave of their friend on Christmas,” I snicker to the frozen marble.
The wind picks up and gets just under my scarf.
“Okay, okay, I’ll get on with it. So, I’m sorry that the only two times I’ve been here since your funeral I yelled and screamed at you. That was a little . . . misplaced. Anyway, I’m sure you already know this—or whatever—but Ryker and I have been spending a lot of time together. You know how crazy we were for each other—you saw our first kiss, for God’s sake.” I laugh. A light snow starts to fall, landing on my black peacoat and eyelashes.
“I love him, Lucas. It never really went away, and I don’t expect it ever will—no matter where we end up. But, I’ve been really sick. I’m working to get better, because what I’ve been doing for the last few years barely classifies as living. Ryker still doesn’t talk much to me about you, and I guess that’s okay. Just . . . I don’t know what kind of pull you have wherever you are, but somehow let him know that it’s okay for him to talk to me about you. Good and bad. Can you do that? I know that’s asking an awful lot since I’ve done nothing but yell at you since you died, but I’m trying.
“My point?” I kneel down and reach into my pocket, pulling out my old yellow ribbon. “I don’t need this anymore. You came home a long time ago, Ryker’s home now, and I’m working like hell to find my way back.” Setting the ribbon at the base of his headstone, I watch snowflakes make quick work of cradling it.
“I miss you, Buddy. Merry Christmas.” I kiss two fingertips and press them against his name, before hurrying back to the warmth of my car.
When I arrive back to my apartment, the interior is alive with anticipation as I hurry to the bedroom to open Bill’s gift. I don’t know why I feel I need to sit on the bed to open this, but knowing Bill Manning, sitting is best anyway.
A small gift tag on the front of the package simply reads: