It’s terrifying.
“So many things are beginning to make sense,” she says with a weird aristocratic accent. Evie sighs and pats once at my chest, tipping her head back to look up at me. She has a faint blush on her cheeks, but she has a smile, too. Her eyes trail down my torso and land on the thin scratches on my side. The flush on her cheeks trips a shade darker.
“Why don’t you go put a shirt on?”
“No need to on my account,” comes the voice from the screen.
“I’m gonna go put a shirt on,” I agree. I place the spatula on the table and make a quick exit, retreating to the safety of my bedroom.
Once the door clicks shut behind me, I pull a flannel from the top drawer without bothering to look at it, taking my time to do up the buttons. It’s for the best that I'm not standing awkwardly behind Evie during a phone call with her friend. I’m not trying to make anything difficult for her. I don’t want her to feel any pressure, from me or anyone else. She puts enough on herself.
I rub the palm of my hand against the back of my neck, frustrated. With the situation but mostly with myself, at my inability to just—say what I want.
I know what I want.
I glance at the bed—the twisted sheets and the faint indent in the pillow next to mine.
But I know it’s selfish to want it.
The door cracks open and Evie pokes her head around the corner, her hair a tangled mess and falling over her shoulders. She smiles gently at me when she sees me standing in the middle of the room and opens the door further. She places a coffee mug on the edge of the dresser like we do this every day.
I wish we did.
I clear my throat. “Everything okay?”
She nods and crosses her arms over her chest as she leans up against the doorframe, an easy smile on her face. All I can do is stare at the buttons of the shirt she stole, the sides barely covering the swell of her breasts. It would be so easy to hook my finger there, pull her to me and forget the mess in my head.
How long is she staying? What will happen when she goes?
How far gone am I and do I even care?
It would all disappear with my mouth on hers.
Half of me expects her to push the conversation, demand that we talk through everything we cracked wide open last night. But she keeps her eyes on me, gaze warm and honest and kind. There’s a faded line pressed from the corner of her eye to the curve of her jaw, a crease from my pillow imprinted against her cheek.
I want her like this every single morning.
“You left your phone on the counter,” she tells me, uncrossing her arms and edging further in the room. “Mabel called and said you’re late.”
I groan. I forgot I volunteered to help her today. Spring wedding season is chaotic at the greenery, and she’s too short to do the arches by herself. I glance down the long line of Evie’s body propped up against the dresser and groan again.
I had plans this morning. Pancakes and syrup with the doors to the porch thrown open wide. The sun on her skin and the tempting line of her throat. I rub at my chest and ignore the low flare of disappointment.
She grins and turns, bending at the waist for the third drawer down. I make a helpless sound as the swell of her hips and the curve of her ass are put on display and she gives me a little shimmy, legs rocking back and forth.
“I’ll go with you,” she tells me over her shoulder, pulling out a pair of jeans and tossing them in my direction. “I’ve got to drop off website stuff for her anyway.”
“You’re still doing that stuff around town?” Social media, a majority of it. But helping Alex stock books on the back shelves, too. Taking a turn on the cash register at the hardware store. Christopher had been beside himself, telling anyone who would listen about the celebrity who wanted to work at his store.
She’s been sharing her sunshine with anyone who needs some light, even as she struggles herself. She’s open and warm and kind and it’s so easy to picture her here. To want her to stay.
She hums in affirmation, a balled up pair of socks soaring through the air and narrowly missing my head. I reach back and grab them off the bed.
She rockets back up on her feet and sets her hands on her hips. Bossy, in every line of her body. Gorgeous, too. “But if we’re skipping breakfast here, I’m gonna want bacon on the way.”
I ease and settle. We’ll figure everything out in time, for better or worse. Worrying about it isn’t going to get me anywhere.
“We can do that.”
The back parking lot of the greenery is full when we arrive, a spike of anxiety making me fidget in my seat. This is not how I wanted to spend my morning with Evelyn. In fact, this is not how I want to spend any morning—ever. I want to go back in time and punch myself in the face for volunteering.
I can feel Evie’s eyes on me, watching me carefully as I maneuver the truck into one of the back alleyways. I reluctantly put it into park and she slips a piece of bacon out of the styrofoam container on her lap, offering me half.
“They like seeing you, you know.”
I bite into the bacon, keeping my gaze firmly locked on the large floral wreath over the door. It usually takes me between five and seven minutes to convince myself to get out of the car. “Who does?”
“Everyone. The town.”
I grunt.
“I just—” I turn to look at her, the bright morning light making her skin glow. She has pink on her neck from where my stubble brushed against her, the edge of a hickey peeking out from beneath her shirt. I give into temptation and reach over, thumbing once at the mark before pulling her collar over it. She turns her head and brushes a kiss against the constellation on the back of my hand. Argo Navis. The mighty ship.
“I don’t want you to be lonely,” she confesses. “Sitting by yourself in that big house. I hate thinking of you lonely.”
She means when she leaves. I slip my hand out of her grip and rub my palm against my thigh. She’s busy planning for her exit while I’m still out in the fields with her, my hands on her bare skin and my heart in my throat.
Disappointment punches me in the gut, a cheap shot that steals the air out of my lungs. All morning I’ve been trying to think of the right words to tell her I want her around and she’s thinking about where she’ll go next. I let out a slow breath and reach for the handle of the door.
“Alright,” I scratch at my nose and push everything back into place. Shoulders back, chin up, crumbling walls held up by toothpicks. “Let’s go in then.”