Page 17 of Mountain Man's Summer Drift
He closed his eyes.
He pulled me close and held me there for a long time. The river kept moving, and the sun moved a few degrees across the sky, and I lay under him on a bedroll on a flat rock and held the side of his face and knew, with a clarity I’d never had about anything in my life, that I wasn’t going home.
5
ROSS
She’d moved in over two days.
Not officially. Not with a big announcement.
Friday night, Suri stayed at Kyron’s place—same as every night that week since the canoe trip—and Sunnie hadn’t gone back to the cabin to sleep. She’d stayed with me.
Saturday morning, Sunnie packed a bag at the cabin while Suri was on the river one last time. By Saturday afternoon, she had a duffel on my apartment floor and a row of toiletries on my bathroom counter. I didn’t ask her how long she was staying because I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer in a number.
Sunday morning, Suri was leaving for Charlotte.
Sunnie went to the cabin alone to say goodbye. I waited in the truck. Twenty minutes later, she came back with the rest of her things and Suri walking behind her.
Suri stopped at the passenger door before Sunnie got in. She looked through the window at me.
“You take care of her,” she said.
“Yes.”
That was the whole conversation. She hugged Sunnie. She got in her sedan. She drove off down the river road, and Sunnieclimbed into my truck with her bag in her lap and watched the dust settle behind the car that had brought her here.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay.”
She unpacked. Slowly. She put a stack of books on the windowsill above my couch and a row of toiletries on the bathroom counter, and the apartment looked different in a way I couldn’t fully explain. The half-unpacked boxes against the wall stopped looking like a man hadn’t moved in and started looking like a place waiting for someone to add what was missing.
I made dinner. We ate at the small table.
Then she said it. “I should probably call my landlord tomorrow.”
I set my fork down. “About what?”
“About the lease. I’d have to give thirty days. If I’m—” She stopped. “If I’m staying.”
“Are you staying?”
She looked at me across the table. “I think I am.”
“You think?”
“I am.”
I watched her say it. She wasn’t braced. She wasn’t apologizing. She was telling me a fact about herself.
It came out before I’d decided to say it. “I haven’t asked you to.”
She tilted her head. “I know.”
“I should ask you to.”
“You don’t have to.”
