Chapter Twenty-One

Tate

Outside of the last week, I've spent my entire life waking up alone. It shouldn't be jarring. In fact, it should be comforting, waking up in a quiet room with as much space to stretch my legs as I could possibly need. But Piper's absence this morning is palpable. I haven't moved in my sleep, keeping her side of the bed as it was when she left, hoping she would come back in the night. I've grown so accustomed to seeing her face first thing in the morning. Instead, I've been greeted by nothing but a white cotton pillowcase and empty air.

My initial instinct is to wonder if she's been hurt. Sunset Lake is safe, the resort doubly so.

I think the idea that she's been kidnapped is somehow far more comforting than the idea that whatever I did or said last night was so odious that she can't bear to look at me or even be near me. I'd rather spend my day filing a missing person's report than examine my own actions. My therapist would probably blame it on my neurodivergence, but we'd mostly cured me of my inability to read social cues.

Mostly.

I can't shake this sensation of doom as I get dressed, feeling like I've irrevocably screwed things up with Piper for good. I'd like to find her and apologize, but I'm still not entirely sure what I've done wrong other than be myself. I've always told her I don't believe in love, and I never said we'd be doing anything else other than pretending. Piper is my best friend and the only person in the world that I trust. I can't help it if she decided to feel something that I never promised.

As I button up my shirt, I wrestle with a storm of thoughts. If I could pin down love, understand it like one of my algorithms, Piper would be the reason for everything—no question. She's become a part of my life so naturally that the thought of a day without her feels as empty as a night sky with no stars. But here's the clincher, and it's gnawing at me big time. My own weirdness walls me off from the very feelings that sketch out what love is supposed to be. How can I give Piper the heartfelt connection she deserves if I'm not even sure what I'm capable of feeling? The fear that I can't love her—not because I don't want to, but maybe because I don't know how—keeps whispering in my ear, taunting me with the possibility that I might let down the one person who matters most.

And the thought of that makes me too scared to take the risk.

I head out to the main lodge, determined to salvage whatever chance at friendship we have left. I don't see her on the path to the building, and all of my hopes of finding her casually perched inside with a cup of coffee are dashed when I open the door. I find only families with kids getting ready to go out on the lake for the day, that terrible bird, and my brother Gibson with his fiancée Avery.

Grabbing myself a cup of less than stellar coffee from the complimentary station in the lobby, I watch as they interact with each other. The two of them are nothing but smiles. Every touch and glance between them is warm and soft and full of a kind of joy that I don't think I've ever experienced, apart from the way that I felt with Piper on the cruise last night. They're so wrapped up in each other that this entire lodge could come down around them and I don't think they'd even notice. Everything about them screams love. It's like watching something out of a fairytale.

Even the way they talk to each other, discussing their work plans for the day, seems so collaborative. They have each other's backs, an equal team. Love is a partnership. Love is about who you want to spend all your time with. Suddenly, it dawns on me; maybe I've been complicating things, setting romantic love apart as something lofty, something beyond my grasp. All this time, I've been looking for grand gestures in the clouds, when love has been the soil beneath my feet. Love lives in the quiet moments—sharing a laugh over a late dinner, the way Piper listens intently as I ramble about code, her anticipation of what I need before I even think of it, or her patience when I stumble through social cues. Love, I realize, has been manifesting in all the small, everyday interactions with Piper. This revelation doesn't just lighten the weight on my shoulders—it illuminates my entire being.

Love is about finding that person who balances you, and fits like a puzzle piece with all of your idiosyncrasies and failings.

Love is what I have with Piper. Or, rather, what I had, until I torpedoed myself so spectacularly last night.

I love her. I'm fucking madly in love with Piper. And I've been loving her, in my own way, without even knowing it.

I had love this whole time. I was just too stupid to recognize it. And now I've probably lost it for good.

Avery kisses my brother goodbye, wrapping him in a loose hug before making her way out the door. I sidle over toward him with a conciliatory cup of coffee as he watches her go.

"How do you do that?" I ask as he takes the cup from my hands, his eyes not leaving her until the door shuts behind her and she's fully out of view. "How do you … work together and be a couple so easily?"

I never thought I'd be asking two of my brothers for life advice. But I also never thought I'd fall in love, either. This week has been full of firsts.

"Um…" Gibson swirls the coffee in his cup in thought, watching the creamer mix into the brown liquid until it becomes an even color. "At the end of the day? Nothing is more important to me than her happiness. I get up each morning with the intention of making her life better because I'm in it."

"Right." I nod. "That's how I feel about Piper."

"That's a start," he offers stiffly. This conversation is just as awkward for him as it is for me. The men in my family haven't historically been very big on sharing, especially not with each other. That could have something to do with my catastrophic emotional constipation regarding Piper.

I regard my younger brother as I ask, "But what is love, anyway?"

"Well." He pauses, taking a sip of his coffee. "Avery and I have history…"

"Piper and I have been together for years," I blurt in frustration. "Working. Practically living together. I can't stand not seeing her, not knowing what she's doing. When she goes on a date I want to end the guy and put him where Keith Morrison would never find his body. She's intelligent and funny. She's the one person I love arguing with. She's the one person I have to share everything with."

Now that I'm saying it out loud, I feel even dumber than I did when I woke up. If love were diagnosable, I just displayed every single symptom. I'm a textbook case.

Gibson chuckles. "That sounds like love. So why aren't you making it official?"

I look down at my shoes, shoving a hand in my pocket. "Because I didn't know that was love and I told her I needed more time. I didn't think I was capable of it."

"Huh. So. Flawed premise. Garbage in, garbage out." Gibson nods sagely, mulling over my words. "What would you do if this was one of your projects? Toss it all? Start from scratch?"

My mind races, every pulse point in my body throbbing with the unsaid words clogging my throat. The parallel between my technical work and my personal life, especially with Piper, couldn't be clearer now that I've let truth permeate my brain. Love, much like coding, isn't about discarding the whole system at the first sign of error—it's about making adjustments, evolving. With Piper's image burning brightly in the forefront of my mind, the answer seems obvious, necessary.

I straighten, a resolve firming my voice as I meet Gibson's gaze. "No, tweak it. Fix it. It's all about the theory of sunk costs."

My brother looks at me like I'm the slowest man in the world, patting me on the shoulder with a firm hand. "Then do that with Piper, too. But for the love of God, don't ever use the word ‘theory' when you're talking to a woman about love."

He's right. This would just be a lot easier to fix if I had any idea what I was doing. The only thing I can think to do is try and reset our relationship to an older stage, to reboot us and take us back to factory settings. If nothing else, we have to get out of Sunset Lake. Maybe being in a new environment was what messed things up to begin with. Everything was fine in the city. If I take us back there, then things might be fine again. If I can't make Piper and I work as a couple, I can at least try to make us work as a professional partnership, and hopefully as friends.

But what I can't do is lose her.

I need to pack, and I need to get out of Sunset Lake as fast as I can.