21. Connor

Mattias was trying to kill me.

Sure, our conversations sometimes turned flirty, drifted toward "what I want to do with you," if we were feeling comfortable or sleepy or, well, a little tipsy on one very notable occasion that'd left me with way too much to think about to be a couple hours away from the man I wanted.

I stared at the screen and—this time? Yeah, I thought I was ready to try for more.

Over the last nine months, I'd expected Mattias's interest to drift or our conversations to turn stale. If anything, they'd just gotten better and better. He was funny and honest and—fuck, I missed him.

I missed Jessamine and Peanut and Cider Landing. I missed the way Jessie felt like they were right there, just hiding behind a curtain, no matter where I went.

I'd grown up in New York. My whole life had played out in the city. Now, it felt like I was being pulled to Cider Landing, and those last few ties that kept me trapped in my old life were starting to unravel.

"What are you doing?" Yolanda asked.

She'd come in while I was staring down at the computer, my cheeks warm, wondering how to respond, and I hadn't noticed her.

I shut the window on my computer and smiled. "Trying to remember how to... do romance?"

She grimaced. "Like the... dating part?" she asked hopefully.

I nodded, and she sighed in relief.

"That's easy. He's a guy?" She glanced at the back of my computer, clearly indicating whoever was on the other side of the screen.

"Yeah.

"Guys are easy. Take him out to dinner."

"He's a chef."

"And chefs don't eat?"

I shrugged. "Well, sure. I'm just not as familiar with the restaurants in the area—what his favorite would be. I want to give him something that proves I can, I don't know, provide? Or—eh, that sounds kind of weird and peacocky. I just don't want to give him a worse version of something he could do for himself. I want to?—"

"Peacock?" Yolanda arched a black brow.

I huffed. "Yes, okay. I want to show off a little. You have to understand, Mattias has seen me at my worst. I don't want him to think I'm always like that, another person he has to take care of. He's already taken on a lot, so I want to show him that it's a two-way street and that I won't, you know, drag him down."

Yolanda's expression softened until I had to look away. Yeah, I was a giant abysmal anchor of stunted dad pain—or, well, that's how I felt sometimes. And Yolanda would've told me I was full of shit and that there was no right way to handle the kind of trauma we'd been through.

Thankfully, she didn't say it out loud. She didn't really need to.

"Fancy watch?" she suggested.

I scowled as I thought it over. Would Mattias like that? It was hard to imagine. Nothing in the Cider Inn really seemed that fashionable or expensive. It was full of bird paintings his grandfather had done, charming old wallpaper, real wooden furniture. I didn't think a diamond encrusted watch would do anything but make him feel weird—or make me feel weird for giving it to him.

I sighed. "No. It needs to be something more personal than that."

"So what's something you can do together?"

That was a problem—so much of what we'd done together had to do with his work or my kid.

"We... read the same books sometimes? Talk about them."

"Maybe you can do something with that?"

I shrugged. Maybe, but I couldn't think of what.

"Anyway," I said, "did you need something?"

"I wanted to make sure you looked at the Dove House account. We have to get back to them by the end of the day if we want to make changes to the contract."

"Will do. Anything else high on the priority list?"

She shook her head. "Everything's in good shape."

The first couple years working with Tadpoles, I'd had to be there, on the ground, all the time. It'd been a ton of work, and a good distraction from thinking about—well, everything.

Now, though, I'd hired enough people, and they'd stuck around long enough, that things worked without my constant prodding.

Which... brought up an idea I'd been rolling around for a while. "Do you think I could get away with remote work?" I asked. "I'd keep the apartment. Maybe split time."

Yolanda shrugged. "I don't see why not. We've done it before, and it's not like we need people physically in the office every day. There'll still be events and stuff, but if you want to start stepping out of the spotlight for those, even that's doable, assuming there's someone you trust."

"Would you do them?"

She blew a raspberry. "Hell no. Charming the pants off a big group of people is not my thing." Her face scrunched up and her gaze drifted toward the window. "What about Fatima?"

Fatima was a relatively new hire. She'd fled her country as a refugee and, well, I didn't think I'd ever met anyone more passionate about reuniting families. And refugee families? Parents who'd pushed their kids to safety and struggled to find them after? They needed all the help we could give them.

Before Fatima, I was embarrassed to say that it was a community we'd underserved, but it left a lot of room for us to grow, and she really had some great ideas about how to do it.

"Think that'd be too much, too fast?"

Yolanda shrugged. "You should talk to her about it. I think she'd be great, and even if it's a couple months or years off, preparing her to share the load with you—yeah, if it's something you want to explore, let her know so she can think about her next steps."

"You're right. I want her to know she's got a future here if she wants one, and if this is a direction she wants to go in—" Fuck, it'd be nice.

It wasn't that I didn't love the work we did. I didn't even want to step back from it. But god, getting in front of people or going on television and radio shows? It fucking wore me out.

"Yeah, I'll talk to her about it."

"And your grand gesture for the guy?"

I snorted. "No idea."

I was stuck, there on the curb outside the Cider Inn, staring into my trunk. Did I bring Jessie's suitcase up like always? It felt weird, when I was trying to show Mattias I was handling my shit and dating me wasn't a self-destructive thing to do, to carry my missing kid's suitcase around.

And it felt worse to leave it behind, like I was giving up on Jessie and I didn't expect them to ever come back.

I still didn't know what to make of the voices in the woods, but I'd heard them. Maybe that part was a delusion, but?—

Well, it didn't matter. In the end, I couldn't leave Jessie behind.

"Everything okay?"

I looked up, and there, on the little hill that cut down to the street, stood Mattias. He glanced into my trunk and saw Jessie's suitcase, and he smiled—a little too bright, a little too quick, but the intention was kind anyway.

I pulled the bright green suitcase out with my own and came up the stairs. Mattias met me at the top of them and reached for the handle of my suitcase.

I left my hand there, and that first warmth of his fingers sent a spark up my forearm. I grinned, and his gaze dropped to my lips, and, well, why not?

I leaned in to brush my lips across his in a quick kiss. "Everything's great now," I muttered against his soft mouth.

For a second, we stood there, his eyes still closed. Slowly, he opened them and the smile that spread across his face was fucking gorgeous.

Wanting to keep it there, I let my hand brush his as he took my suitcase and said, "I'm happy to see you."

"Yes," he agreed, nodding, a little awkward. "Yes. That. Definitely. I mean, same. I'm happy to see you too."

I smiled back at him, and for one moment, everything was perfect.

"Come in. You're okay with the heron room again?"

"Perfect."

"And are you hungry? I was thinking we'd eat around seven, but if you're hungry now?—"

I laughed. "Not yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I, uh—I had a thought?"

Mattias stopped on the porch and stared at me. "What's up?"

Yes, okay, I should have gotten settled and come up with something better and been suave and magnificent, but I was still the guy who had too many shirts with his own name on them. I had almost no game. Worse, I realized in retrospect that I'd never had any game, so it wasn't about reacquainting myself with atrophied skills. I was starting from zero.

So I dug in my messenger bag and pulled out a box set of DVDs.

"I, uh, realized that they'd made a show out of my favorite series. Maybe you've already seen it, but I thought we could—I don't know—watch it together while I'm here. Or not. I just wanted to?—"

Give him something, honestly.

And standing there on the porch, I was sure that it wasn't enough. I should've gone for the watch.

"It's nothing. I just—something we could do together." Great, now I was mumbling, and Mattias had that glittery look in his eyes as he watched me fumble.

Then he leaned in, almost close enough to steal another kiss. "I can't wait."