Chapter 63

CHAPTER 63

JESS

I t was all done and dusted. The twisty journey we'd embarked on the day we'd struck oil was officially behind us. If everything Slate had said was true, it would be smooth sailing from here. No more uncertainty or unwelcome surprises.

Just us here on Merrick Meadows, living our lives as usual and raking in some serious cash on the side. I really couldn't believe it, but the oil was ours. It was protected. We'd be keeping the property and extracting the oil, and once again, it was all because of Slate.

I felt so ashamed that I'd doubted him that my cheeks burned with it just thinking about it. After dinner, he'd checked his phone to find the business plan from Mira had arrived while we'd been eating, and he'd worked through it with us right then and there.

It turned out we could start selling the oil come the fall. We were set up with a trustworthy crew who had been here for months and I trusted Mira wholeheartedly to be our seller. My parents were happier than I'd ever seen them and I could breathe easier than I had in years, knowing we'd be okay from now on.

Everything had worked out perfectly—except for one little thing.

Slate and I wandered through the back fields among the fireflies, their twinkling lights providing the backdrop to the conversation I'd been dreading for weeks now. The end had come far more abruptly than I'd thought.

His work here was officially done for now, and while I'd figured there would be some kind of warning before it was, there hadn't been anything. When I'd left this afternoon to go into town, everything had been the same as it had been for the last couple of months, but when I'd come home, it'd all changed.

Caught off guard, I had no idea what to say to him as we strolled through the long grass, watching as the fireflies zoomed in the air around us. I felt like I'd had the breath knocked out of me, and since we'd both been quiet ever since he'd asked me to take a walk with him, I wondered if he felt the same way.

If he was thinking the same thing.

Just last week, Mom and I had been so certain that I still had time. Now, suddenly and out of absolutely nowhere, the clock had run out. The bridge had come and I had to cross it, but I had no clue how to go about doing that.

During this last week, things with him had felt different. He'd been the same as always, except that he seemed a little more distant. Like he'd started pulling away as soon as he'd heard the team was finishing up.

Even so, we'd spent time alone as well as with my family, and I'd thought I might've been imagining it. As we walked silently across the field though, I couldn't help but wonder if that had been him bracing himself for this very moment.

Eventually, I couldn't keep quiet anymore. I had to know.

"What does this mean, the job being done?" I asked softly, glancing at him as we kept walking.

"It means it's time for me to go home," he murmured, his hands in his pockets and his gaze on the fireflies.

Devastation ripped through me at the words. "So soon?"

"I think so." He shrugged, finally stopping and turning to face me, his head cocking but his hands still in his pockets. "What have we been doing all this time, Jess?"

I blinked past the dam of tears I was just barely managing to keep from bursting. Frowning, I stared up at him. "We've been…"

I trailed off, my throat too tight to keep talking.

Nodding slowly, he caught my face in the palm of one of his big hands and I leaned into it, shuffling a step closer to him. I couldn't stand the thought that this was goodbye. It couldn't be.

Yet, he was looking at me in a way that told me that was exactly what it was. I could see the hurt shimmering in his eyes and the pain in the furrow of his brow, but he never backed away from stuff. It seemed he was intent on facing it head on.

"Don't get me wrong, Jess," he murmured. "I've loved every second of this, but we've been lying to ourselves. Pretending that everything would just magically be okay, but this was always going to end, wasn't it?"

"I hoped it didn't have to," I whispered, searching his eyes for even a tiny glimmer of hope that I could cling to but not finding anything. "This has been the best summer of my life, Slate. Despite the rough patches, I've never been happier and that's mostly because of you."

I hesitated, but I wasn't ready to give up just yet. I had to tell him. "I feel like you were meant to be here this summer and that we were meant to meet."

And to fall in love.

I didn't say that last part, though. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't force the words past my lips because the look in his eyes hadn't changed. There was still a glint of finality there, and if that was the way he felt, then this truly was already over.

"I feel the same way." A slight smile touched the corners of his lips. "And hey, I'll be back. I'll still come visit. You already know that I love your parents and I want to keep in touch."

Right . He loves my parents .

I sighed and dropped my chin in half-nod. "Of course. They'd appreciate that."

His eyes lingered on mine for a moment longer, but then he let go of my face and took a big step back, waving a hand at the site in the distance. "I'll also have to come check on the job, and the oil, and you."

"Me?"

"Of course." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm going to miss you, Jess. I'm going to miss this place, and your house, and Pepper."

"Pepper?" I chuckled, but I didn't really feel it. "Really?"

"Sure, she's going to miss me too."

"I'm sure she will."

Why are you leaving, then? I wanted to shout the question right into his face so that there could be no mistaking that this didn't make sense to me.

Clearly, there were a lot of things here that he'd miss. He just said so himself and I heard the pain lacing his voice. He meant it. It didn't look like he wanted to go at all and yet he was saying goodbye.

Stay, Slate! Just say you'll freaking stay. My mother's voice whispered at the back of my mind then. Perhaps it's time to ask him to stay in Firefly Grove.

As I looked up into his eyes, I came so close to just taking the leap, but in the end, I couldn't do it. I simply wasn't willing to ask him to give up his whole life to move here to be with me. If that was what he wanted to do, he'd have offered it freely.

Since he hadn't, I could only assume it wasn't what he wanted. Meanwhile, I wanted it more than anything in the world, but if he wasn't offering, I wasn't asking.

It was too much.

The guy had a whole life out there. I was only one girl on one farm hours away from the nearest city. There was no way I could ask him to give it all up for me.

Besides, it wasn't like he was asking me to give it all up for him either. He'd never said a single thing about me even just coming to visit him once he went back to the city, let alone moving there to be with him.

"You're really leaving?" I asked when he turned to keep walking, his hands back in his pockets and a healthy few feet of space suddenly between us.

He nodded. "I am. Your dad has signed a copy of that contract Mira sent over and she's going to need it to formally get started. The sooner she has it, the better."

My heart cracked. "When are you going?"

"I'm planning on heading home tomorrow," he said. "First thing, probably. I'll have to sit down with her and explain how your parents want things to work, so the earlier I get there, the better, and the longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave."

And just like that, my cracked heart broke into pieces. "Oh."

I brought a hand to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut to gain control of the tears that were begging to fall. My throat was so tight that it felt like I couldn't breathe and yet I'd known this was coming. All along, ever since the day he'd stepped out of his car in front of the house, I'd known he wasn't here to stay.

Sure, the last couple of weeks, I'd been hoping to everything out there that he would change his mind, but he hadn't. He still planned on leaving.

The sooner, the better. Apparently.

"What are you going to do when you get back there?" I finally managed to ask without breaking down.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Snuggle my nephew, I suppose. After that, I guess I'll just have to figure it out."

Ouch .

It stung that he didn't even know what he was going home to do but he was still leaving. I wished he'd choose me over just being back in the city, but I wouldn't ask him to do it. Especially not if he was so determined to go back there despite not really having anything except Beau to go back to.

I got that he wanted to go and snuggle his nephew, but he could do that when he visited. He could even go visit every week. I doubted he was going to see him more often than that anyway. Mira and Logan were both busy people. It wasn't like he'd be moving into their house to be with the baby.

And yet .

I sucked in a breath of air when the pain of the heartbreak really hit me. Slate was going home to nothing rather than staying here with me.

God, that hurts.

As if he sensed my pain, he glanced at me, and it was like I could see the wall going up behind his eyes. "You know what? Maybe I should just go now. The sooner, the better, and all."

"Maybe you should," I said, starting to walk backward away from him. "Goodbye, Slate. Thanks again for all your help. I'll see you around."

With that, I gave him a feeble little wave and took off back toward the house, not stopping to talk to my parents in the kitchen as I fled upstairs to my bedroom. It felt like there was an angry cat living inside me, tearing my chest, my heart, and every other organ into shreds with its sharp, pointy little nails.

Gasping for breath as I curled up on my bed, I wondered how the hell we'd just ended things that way after everything we'd been through. It didn't seem possible. That couldn't have been the end. It was ridiculous.

It was so fast. So abrupt. Just this morning, he'd kissed me silly behind the barn and now I heard him coming up the stairs. Probably to collect his things.

The dam behind my eyes finally broke and I choked on the first sob as it wracked through me. As impossible as it seemed, it was happening. Right now, Slate was packing, and very soon, he would be gone.

He'd been pretty clear about that.

The job was over and evidently so were we.