Page 70 of Left of Forever

She comes closer. “Are you done?” she asks.

I stare at her again. “Done what? Talking?”

She shrugs, her chin bouncing chaotically now. “That, too,” she says, breathing out a single, teary chuckle. “But are you about done trying to prove yourself?”

“I don’t know,” I say, heart in my throat. “You tell me.”

She closes the distance between us and slides to her knees, laying her hand against my face. I start to cry like a fucking kid again the moment she touches me. I reach up and hold her palm tight to my skin.

“I wanted it to be you, anyway,” she says wetly. “Iwantedit to be you.” She coughs out a tiny cry that I feel in my chest. “But then I saw that fucking text on Thanksgiving, and I misread everything and oh my god, Ellis, I panicked. I thought you’d moved on, and realized I’d stayed there, still loving you somehow. I panic-dated! It was awful!” Relief collapses me into her, and I wipe at her tears while mine flow freely. We laugh, and our teeth clink in a frantic kiss. “I’m so sorry I misread it all. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner.”

“Hey, no. No, baby,” I tell her, my rough laugh a little hysterical. “It sure as hell wasn’t you. My timing has been shit for a lot of things. And I’m sorry you panic-dated. If it’s any consolation, I died a little every time I heard about it.”

Her head falls back with a wail. “Some of them were so bad! I should be so mad at you.”

We’re both laughing again. “That’s okay, baby. Be mad at me forever,” I say. But then she kisses me sweetly and it feels like forgiveness.

“Thank you. Thank you for doing this. For making this trip happen,” she says. The high tightness of her voice has me kissing every corner of her face. When I get to her lips again, we lose a few minutes. “Would you be offended if I asked you to bring me home a day early?” she asks, punctuating it by nipping my jaw. “I want to come home now.”

I can’t help it—I break into a full-bodied laugh. Hugging hertight around the shoulders like she’ll keep me from floating away, I say, “I’d move into the truck with you just to live with you again,” I say. “Care if we take one more little segue, though? It’s the last thing I wanna do.”

One last thing to get right.

CHAPTER 36

WREN

We hold hands the entire way back to camp, then past it when we decide to go grab breakfast at the restaurant. We’re both starving after only focusing on our other appetites last night. I think I can’t let go because, just like he said, the thought that we could’ve missed out on this makes me feel a bit unsteady.

Ellis and I share a platter of waffles and split a hearty omelet between us, swapping plates or cutting pieces and forking them onto the other’s. It’s like remembering the steps to an old dance.

“So, I’ve been wondering,” he asks me. He automatically cuts the perfect corner off his waffle and puts it onto my plate. “Did you ever talk to anyone about the letters?”

I offer a melancholy smile and a shrug. “No. It wasn’t like they were romantic or something, but… I don’t know, I guess they felt intimate still?”

“Hinting that you looked like a goblin was pretty racy,” he snorts.

“Ha.” I pour him some fresh coffee from the press at our table. “But again, no. Even if she could sometimes pry a little bit out of me, I was pretty careful with what I talked about with Sage. And yeah, Silas is just downright nosy, so he had no qualms about asking if I had date plans and stuff, but… I don’t know. They always put on a good face about things, but I couldn’t talk to them about much without feeling like I was making them disloyal to you or something,” I say. “Plus, you know Sage. If I’d mentioned a pair of horses potentially caught in a fire, she’d have gone and looked for them herself or something.” I laugh but look back up at him when I notice he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry you felt like you didn’t have people you could talk to,” he says. He drags my hand over and kisses the base of my palm.

I shake my head, not sure if the tears springing up are happy or sad. “What about you?” I say. “Did you have people you could talk to?”

“I let it slip to Kirby, and that helped. Her cousin was the one who found out about the horses. But as far as the rest of them… my family.” He sighs wearily. “All these years, I just… I just assumed they were closer to you than they were to me.”

It’s my turn to sigh. “In a way, maybe. But mostly, I couldn’t do that to you. You hardly ever got the chance to just be their brother, let alone their friend.”

He continuously massages circles into my hand with his thumb. “I’m trying more with them. To loosen up, worry less. Be their friend instead of managing them and hovering, I guess. Sometimes I feel like the least fun brother.” He chuckles wryly.

“Ehh. You are,” I say, my shoulders jumping in a small shrug. “But you’re themostfun for me.”

“Yeah, well. I provide a different sort of amusement for you,” he says, mouth tilting in a crooked smirk. “They don’t always sharethings with me like they did with you, and then I find myself not sharing things, too, and it makes me wonder why we don’t all trust one another more. And sometimes I just think I put a damper on their fun.” He adjusts in his seat uncomfortably. “Even the bride at the winery thought I was an old man after taking one look at me.”

“She was on her fourth winery of the day and hammered, Ellis. Your brothers and sister don’t have any less fun with you. And it’s not that they don’t trust you, either. I think they just…” I try to find the words. “You’ve always taken on anything for any of them. For any ofus. It can be hard to feel like you deserve that kind of love. It gets hard to share your burdens, especially with the one person who’s always tried to relieve you of them. It happened with me and you, too.” I kiss his big knuckles and touch his empty ring finger. “I bet if you confide in them more, they’ll meet you in the middle,” I say, which is when something occurs to me. “Do they know about your tattoos?” He shakes his head, and a happy sound pops out of me. “Silas is going to lose his shit.” They all will, I’m sure.

We finish breakfast and stroll hand in hand back to our site before we pack up the few things we’d unpacked. I feel on the edge of giggling the whole morning. He sprawls in a wooden chair in the corner of the tent, legs braced wide as he watches me get ready, his gaze heady. I throw on a midlength sundress and strappy, comfortable sandals for the day. When his eyes heat and his jaw starts to tick, I decide to ask him to take everything off again, which ends up costing us an hour and leads me to have to start the process all over.

“Ready?” he asks. This time, after I’ve strapped on my sandals. “Just one more stop.”