Chapter 29

29

Ellie

I'd planned to stay in Shipwreck through the weekend for recovery time, but with Beck back, the odds of having a minute of peace are nil. Not because he's always as annoying as he was this morning, but because he'll be calling anyone he can to hang out while he's in town, which will undoubtedly be three days or less.

And I don't want to be in the house when he sees the new high score on Frogger.

Too many memories.

So I convince my dad to ride with me back to Copper Valley before lunch.

When we hit the 256 loop around the city, my eyes sting, because we're officially now out of the country and out of the mountains. It's back to the hustle and bustle. Traffic. Billboards. Skyscrapers.

Dad's quiet the entire ninety-minute drive. When I pull into the driveway of the red brick colonial in the middle-class neighborhood where I grew up, with the old basketball hoop still over the garage door, my eyes burn again.

Dad squeezes my knee. "Been through a lot this year."

He doesn't tell me I'm overreacting. Or that it's okay to be scared, but not okay to let fear rule my life, or any of the other things I logically know.

That's not how Dad works.

Probably because all the rest of us finally talked him into silence over the years.

But he does offer me a scoop of homemade peach cobbler if I want to stay a few hours.

So that's how I find myself curled up on my parents' couch, watching the Fireballs get creamed in high definition, while my dad cuts and sugars early season peaches for our late lunch of peach cobbler.

I don't realize I've drifted off to sleep until the doorbell rings, and when I wake up, I'm disoriented and confused, and it takes me a minute to remember why my heart hurts.

Wyatt .

He probably hates me.

I hope he does. That'll make it easier for him to move on.

I curl tighter into a ball. The game's over, and now an old Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie is on.

"Ellie, I'm going for a walk," Dad calls from the front door.

"'Kay," I answer, frog voice and all.

I haven't had any peach cobbler yet, but I should go home. I don't have any food. I need to do laundry. And catch up on work email.

Plus, I could stop at a pet shelter on the way and ask to play with the dogs for a few hours. Guaranteed pick-me-up.

Since Beck sometimes shares my social media posts about dogs that haven't found their forever homes—always with a caption like Sharing for my sister, who wishes she'd been born a dog so it would be socially acceptable for her to lick my face —I'm undeservedly welcome at all the shelters in the metro area.

I'm staring blindly at Meg Ryan's profile on the television when the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and the pile of ashes in my chest gives a big ol' whomp .

There's a shadow in the doorway.

A Wyatt-size shadow. Or possibly more than a shadow.

That whomp turns into a staccato beat of whomp after whomp after whomp .

"Please," I whisper, and I don't know if I'm asking him to stay or leave. I just know it hurts.

It hurts to think about hurting him.

It hurts to think about losing him.

And it hurts to be terrified that disaster is waiting around every corner if I reject both of my first two options.

He steps slowly into the room, eyes trained on me, searching, asking.

I don't even have to look him in the eye to know.

He's not afraid.

He's not afraid of anything.

"You okay?" he asks, and that voice.

God , I love his voice. Rich and smooth and warm, like hot chocolate after a day playing in the snow.

"Fine," I say hoarsely, and we both know I'm lying.

I can't tell if he's tired, frustrated, or all of the above, but I do know the yellowing bruise on his eye is all the reminder I need of the danger of the two of us getting together.

"Where's Tucker?" I ask, and dammit , there's another flame attacking the ashes in my chest.

"With your dad. He's not too happy about the drive coming up."

The drive.

He should've already left.

Instead, he's still here, lowering himself to the couch on the opposite end of where I'm curled up, and it's all I can do not to crawl across the cushions and into his lap to hold him and tell him how sorry I am.

For everything.

For being a shithead when we were kids. For seducing him at Christmas when we were both hurting.

For not answering his phone calls after the accident.

For pushing him away.

"I love you," he says quietly, his voice husky but strong. No hitch. No hesitation. "I've spent my whole life afraid of what it would be like to love you, but I do, Ellie. I love you."

"You shouldn't." He's going to break me.

"I never thought I was built for marriage. I never believed in forever. But I look at you, and I can feel it. I can see it. You? You're everything I never knew I wanted. Never knew I needed . I didn't believe in forever until I believed in you."

Break me? No. Destroy me. "We're—we're dangerous , Wyatt."

"If there's anyone in the world who can give the universe a middle finger and tell it to kiss your ass if it thinks it's going to stand in your way, it's you." He sets a piece of paper on the cushion between us. "I don't care if it takes you two hours or forty years. I'll wait. You will always be the only woman I'll ever love."

My breath hitches when he takes my hand and kisses my cheek, because yes , he's everything I want.

Everything .

But I'm terrified.

My entire life, all I wanted was to meet the goal.

Of course I dated Patrick. He checked all the boxes. Handsome. Successful. Smart.

We could've had a lovely marriage where neither of us actually had to love each other, where there was no danger of a broken heart, because all we wanted was someone to be married to.

But I could have so much more.

Laughter. Joy. Tears. Heartbreak.

With a man who knows me. Who gets me. Who accepts me.

All of me. The good and the bad. The pretty and the ugly. The broken and the whole.

If I'm willing to go for it.

Wyatt doesn't pause on his way out the door.

He doesn't have to.

Because he's tossed the ball back in my court. And left his address, his home phone number, and his work phone number on the couch between us.

It's my turn to decide what to do.

If I'm going to do anything at all.