“I’m ready.”
They held hands and walked up a path that led past the old barn, through a grove of oaks, and up onto a hill overlooking the ocean.
Little wildflowers dotted the grass on either side of the path, and butterflies alighted on the blooms.
“It’s incredibly beautiful here,” Gen said, and realized she was stating the obvious. “I’m surprised some developer hasn’t come in and bulldozed the whole thing, putting up rows and rows of identical stucco houses. That’s what they do here in California, isn’t it?”
“That’s what they’d like to do,” Ryan agreed. “We’ve had offers. Big offers.”
“I’ll bet. But this …” She gestured to encompass the grass, the trees, the air, and the world around them. “Covering this up would have been a crime.”
“You’re not going to get a view like this in Manhattan,” he commented.
He was aware that he was treading on delicate territory. They’d gone out once, slept together once, and so it was way out of line for him to suggest—even obliquely—that she should abandon her plans to return to New York. He didn’t want to be clingy and possessive just because they’d had sex. Even if it was really great sex.
But it was more than the sex. It was the way her copper-colored hair spread out around her in the breeze, catching the sunlight and gleaming. It was the way her firm, compact body fit in his arms. It was the way she smiled when she saw him, like a light had been turned on inside her, brightening everything around her. It was all of that, and other things he couldn’t name, things he wasn’t sure he could live without now that he’d found them.
Knowing that she ultimately planned to leave—knowing that she didn’t intend to make a life here in Cambria—he never should have gotten involved, never should have become attached to this idea of her, this idea of the two of them together. But it was too late for that now. He supposed it was possible she’d change her mind and stay. He wasn’t self-centered enough to believe she’d stay just because of him—not this soon into something that couldn’t even be called a relationship—but maybe because of everything. She had friends here, good friends. And now she had him, too, and he hoped that would add another weight onto this side of the scale.
He knew what it was to be a man. He knew men were not supposed to make themselves vulnerable, to leave themselves open for heartbreak. But he had an idea that maybe part of what it was to be a man was to love fearlessly, to have that kind of courage. He hoped he was up to that challenge.
“Tell me about it,” he said after a while. “About New York. What was your life like there?”
She squeezed his hand and then paused, as though the subject were too large for her to approach without steeling herself first.
“New York,” she said finally. “Well. It’s so different from here. Have you visited there?”
“Once, when I was in college. A friend and I took a trip out there for a week during winter break. See the Statue of Liberty, go to the top of the Empire State Building. That kind of thing.”
She nodded. “Okay, then you have some idea. There’s a power, there’s a—oh, I don’t know—a life force pumping through everything. Like you really are at the center of the universe. That thing about it being the city that never sleeps—that’s so true. There was always somewhere to go, always something to do. I used to stay out until four a.m. and then work at the gallery all day.” She smiled and shook her head at the memory. “Looking back, I don’t know where I got that kind of energy.”
He considered that. “Being that busy, staying out all night … did you enjoy that kind of thing?”
“I did.” Then she seemed to reconsider. “Well. Sometimes I did. But there were other times when it seemed really … exhausting.”
“I can imagine.” What she was describing was a life so foreign to his own that the very thought of it tired him. He was no stranger to staying up all night, but it was usually to nurse a sick calf or to help a cow give birth. Bars and nightclubs, parties … he’d done some of that in college, but it had grown old fast.
“What about friends?” he asked.
She frowned. “I had a lot of people I knew. A lot of acquaintances. And I thought I had a lot of friends. But not like this. Not like I have here.”
That was what he’d hoped she would say—he’d hoped to remind her that she had good, close friendships here—but now he felt manipulative having led her there. And being manipulative made him feel like a dick.
“Look, Gen.” They paused on top of a ridge with a view of swaying grass and a horizon of blue water. Some birds flew overhead that might have been sandpipers. “I’ve got to admit something. I asked about friends because I don’t want you to leave. I thought if I reminded you about your friends here in Cambria …”
She looked up at him and gave him a half grin that made him feel soft inside. “You don’t want me to leave?”
“Well, no.”
She turned to fully face him. “That’s interesting.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I know we don’t have a relationship yet, not really, but I hope we will, and if we do, and then you decide to go …”
He left it hanging there. If she decided to go, then what? He’d be hurt. He’d miss her. Or perhaps he’d leave the only life he’d ever known to build a new one three thousand miles away. The fact that he was even thinking that way left him confused and worried. Okay, scared. Screw it. He could admit that.
She put her hands on his shoulders, went up on the tips of her toes, and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.
“It’s not a sure thing, me leaving. And if I go, it won’t be for a while,” she said.
“All right.”
“And in the meantime … you’re hoping this will be a relationship?”
He’d said those words, there was no point in taking them back now. “Well … yeah. I don’t want to rush anything, but … yeah.”
She grinned at him and lowered herself back onto her heels. “I’m so glad we’re not still talking about Lacy.”
He pulled her into his arms so suddenly that she gasped.
“Lacy who?” he said, and then silenced her with a long, deep kiss.
Chapter Twenty-One
Since their date hadn’t worked out—or, more precisely, it had worked out so well that they hadn’t actually gone anywhere—they rescheduled for that weekend.
They’d already been to Neptune, and Ryan wasn’t sure where to take her this time. He wanted to do something special, though, something fun. He was still pondering it when he, Jackson, Will, and Daniel gathered at Shamel Park, down by the beach, for a pickup basketball game. They hadn’t played in months, and Ryan worried that his skills would be lacking from disuse. He worried that he would embarrass himself.
He did embarrass himself, but not because of his basketball ability. It was more because he was so distracted by thoughts of seeing Gen again that he wouldn’t have noticed if the ball had smacked him square in the face.