I made the mistake of looking at Will again. The way he watched me with fascination made me uneasy. “Not a big fan of change?”
“I liked the way it was before.” I pointed to a corner by the window. “We had this old orange velvet armchair there, and all these Nigella Lawson cookbooks.” Hardly anyone looked through them, but Nigella was our thing. “There were wooden beads hanging over there.” I gestured to the doorway that led to the prep kitchen.
The wall Will was painting once had a large corkboard over the milk and sugar station, where people tacked flyers for piano lessons, missed connections, knitting circles—anything, really. Last year, one of our regulars proposed to his boyfriend by pinning up a sign that read, I love you, Sean. Will you marry me? He’d cut vertical strips into the bottom, each with the same answer: Yes.
“It used to be cozy in here. It’s like a totally different place now,” I said. “It’s so . . . stark.”
“I know what you mean,” Will said, brushing muffin from his chest pockets. There was a plain gold signet ring on his pinkie. “Every time I come back to Toronto, it’s changed a little. Sometimes more than a little.”
“You don’t live here?”
“Vancouver,” he said. “But I grew up here. And yeah, it’s always evolving. I don’t mind it, though.” He pushed a slice of hair off his face. “Whenever I’m home, I have the chance to get to know the city all over again.”
“How romantic,” I said, deadpan. But his words hit my bloodstream like an espresso shot.
3
Now
I stare at Will across the front desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard, throat dry. His eyes are fixed on mine. He still hasn’t given me his name, and Jamie is looking between us, his head whipping around like a puppy choosing between chew toys.
Will and I were twenty-two the last time we saw each other, and he’s not at all like how I thought he’d turn out. I wonder if he’s thinking the same about me. Because he must know who I am. He must know this Brookbanks Resort is my Brookbanks Resort.
“I just need your name so I can look up the reservation,” Jamie says, nudging me out of the way while Will and I watch each other. His eyes tighten at the corners. He’s not sure I’ve recognized him.
But of course I have, even though this Will Baxter is very different from the Will Baxter I once knew. He’s still all long lines and keen edges, though the suit is throwing me. So is the hair, combed back from his forehead and cemented with product. He’s still trim, but there’s a sturdiness to him. It’s the suit and the hair and the body, plus the ten years since I last saw him.
As unexpected as they are, the bespoke clothing and the two-hundred-dollar haircut suit him. That grace he has.
“Will Baxter,” he says, eyes locked on me as he slides his credit card and ID onto the counter.
I spent just one day with Will, and it changed my life. I once thought he might be my soulmate. I once thought he and I would be here together under very different circumstances. I once thought a lot of things about Will.
And I have wasted far too much of my adult life wondering what happened to him.
I might have been able to stop my jaw from hitting the burgundy carpeting, but I can’t get a handle on my breathing. This goddamn dress of my mother’s is so tight, I can see my chest rising and falling. Will also notices. His eyes drop for a second, and when they come back to mine, he sucks in a jagged breath.
“Mr. Baxter, I see you’re booked in one of the cabins this year,” Jamie says.
I barely hear him.
Will must not, either, because he doesn’t answer. Instead, he dips his head.
“Fern.” Will’s voice is deep, and my name comes out thick, as if it got caught in tar.
I’m not sure what the right move is here. What the safest move is. Pretending I don’t remember him offers me the most protection, but I’m not a very good actor. I’ve never been sure whether it’s unreasonable that I can recall the twenty-four hours I spent with Will so clearly or whether it would be absurd if I didn’t.
I tear at the skin on my forearm, and Will tracks the scratching. I press my hands flat against the desk, annoyed he has this effect on me.
“You’re here.” He says it as if he didn’t just string together the two most ironic words in the English language.
I’m here? I’m here? I want to scream back at him. I want to ask him where the hell he’s been. It was his idea to meet at the resort. I showed up. He’s nine years late.
I open my lips, then close them. I open them again, but nothing comes out.
“Are you okay?” Jamie whispers next to my ear, and I shake my head.
Watermelon, I mouth, hoping he remembers.
“Mr. Baxter,” Jamie says, rubbing his hands together. “Ms. Brookbanks has to depart for the evening, I’m afraid. But I’d be pleased to get you settled.”
Not meeting Will’s eyes, I give his shoulder a nod and edge around the desk.
“I see you’re staying in Cabin 20,” Jamie says.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I charge toward the main doors, keeping my head down. Just before I slip outside, I hear Will call my name, and then I break into a run.
* * *
—
Running from Will Baxter is exhausting. I know, because I’ve spent nine years barreling down this trail. It was supposed to lead far away from him, through some kind of magical mist and enchanted forest, to a land of forgetting. I’ve fled from the feeling of his finger linked with mine, from the hurt. It used to burn hot and sharp, like a lance through the sternum. Over time it faded to a dull ache. But tonight, there is no escape.
I dart down the flagstone steps in front of the lodge. As soon as I land on the path, my high heels sink into the gravel, and I stumble. I shift my weight onto the balls of my feet, but I can only shuffle a few inches at a time. I left my Birkenstocks in the office. Swearing, I pull off the shoes and grit my teeth against the bite of pebbles. I’ve been living in the city too long. Whitney and I used to scamper around the property in bare feet all summer.
I get three strides farther when I hear footsteps hurrying down the stairs behind me.
“Fern. Wait.”
But I don’t wait. I pick up my pace, trip, and go soaring forward. The humiliation hits before the stinging in my palms and knees.
“Are you okay?” Will asks above me.
I rue the day he was born. I rue the people who held each other close nine months before that. I do a lot of rue-ing as I lie there. I press my forehead against the ground and dig my fingers into the stones. Maybe I can burrow my way out of this.
“I’m going to help you up, all right?”
Before I can say no, that it is not all right, that nothing about this is all right, Will takes my arms and pulls me to my feet.
I stall, brushing away bits of dirt and rock, and Will curls down to inspect the damage. His head is a few inches from my own—so close, I can smell his cologne, smoke and leather and something sweet, like burnt caramel. I keep my attention squarely on my legs.
“That looks bad,” he says, then runs his finger beside a bloody patch that’s already starting to swell. I’m too stunned to do anything but watch.
“It’s fine,” I snap. When I chance a look at him, he’s peering back through the dark hedge of his lashes.
“It’s you,” he says. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.
I straighten, and Will does the same, unfolding himself to his full height.
I stare at his tie. He once said he’d never wear one. I wonder what other parts of the plan he didn’t follow through on.
“Are you okay?” he says. “Do you want to sit?” He motions to a log bench that looks over the lake, though it’s too dark to make out the far shore. The air smells of freshly cut grass, petunias, and pine—the manicured lawns and gardens around the lodge colliding with the nearby bush. My eyes drift to the docks, where a few local firefighters are setting up for tonight’s fireworks display, and I swallow.