608 Alpha Avenue (Cherry Falls)

“Bye, Kay.”

“Bye, Haley.”

The door shuts softly.

I fall back on the sofa again. An invisible weight sits cock-eyed on my chest, and I can’t seem to slide it off or just let it crush me. It’s in an uncomfortable angle that makes my insides squirm.

Love is a scary thing.

Out of all of the things that Kaylee said, this is the one that echoes in my brain.

Love is terrifying, I bet. I wish I knew. Despite wanting desperately to find love, to fall blissfully into it—to have the kind of love that I read about and want to write about someday—I’ve never experienced it.

All of the dates I go on—all the guys I have half-assed relationships with—they haven’t been love. Even if I pretend it is or gush about them to Kaylee or write my first name with their last name on napkins just to see what it would look like—that’s me wishing. Hoping. Maybe I’m even trying to make love happen.

But do I know what it feels like? No. Have I ever been in love? Nada.

I’m sure of that. But I also am fully, acutely aware that what I feel in my gut about Grayson—the way I get overwhelmed with a mixture of excitement and calm, chaos and comfort—is nothing like I’ve ever felt for another man before.

It’s lust, and naturally, that’s no stranger to me. But it’s different.

It’s natural. It’s steady. It’s so organic that if I had the courage to think about it, I might wonder if this was the beginning of a love story.

If I’m writing them all wrong.

If it’s not the hero’s voice that I’m confused about, but rather what love feels like … for me. And I wonder if I’ll ever know.

“Whoa,” I say, getting to my feet. “You’re going to need to stop this crap and keep firmly planted in reality.”

I begin picking up from our lunch and try to keep my mind focused on the present. But in the back of my head, in the dark recesses that don’t fear things like heartbreak and humiliation, I ponder if this could be the earliest stages of something real.

That Grayson could be the man—not the book hero—who I’ve been after all along.

Nine

Grayson

Clink. Clank. Boom!

I leap to my feet and inspect my hand. Fire licks up my fingers, over my palm, and into my forearm.

“Shit,” I grumble and give a swift kick to the perpetrator. The tractor doesn’t budge, which adds salt to the already painful wound.

I head to the shop’s sink and turn on the tap. The water is icy against the inflamed skin. I roll my hand side to side to check for swelling. Much to my dismay, there is none.

That just annoys me more.

A bruise or bulge would be satisfying, like a physical manifestation of the stress that’s built inside me all evening. I’m quietly boiling, a cauldron threatening to explode.

I knew it would be like this, though. I fucking knew it.

The fact that this exact situation, this sensation, would transpire if I crossed the line with Haley is the whole reason it hasn’t happened before. Of course, it would be one of the best days of my life. Look at her. And every day that it didn’t happen only added to the mystique, which, in turn, led to it being even more memorable when it did take place.

Because a part of me always felt like it would, no matter how hard I fought against it.

But I slipped and gave in. I didn’t back out. I let myself go to that ridiculous hike, knowing that the outcome was pretty damn decent that we hiked back out with a change in our relationship.

Now what?

I flip off the tap as if it’s to blame for my mood and grab a handful of shop towels. Either the pain in my hand has decreased or it’s taken a back seat to the riot in my head. I dry off my hand and take in the tractor. The part I was trying to remove is now essentially broken, making the matter I came to the shop at eleven at night to fix even worse.

“I should’ve just left her alone,” I grumble, my voice thick with frustration as I toss the towels in the trash can.

“Left who alone?”

I spin around to see Garret leaning against the door to the offices. I didn’t hear him come in, but it’s probably hard to hear anything over the sound of my own voice inside my head.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, firing him a look to warn him that I’m in no mood for his bullshit.

He smirks. “I don’t know. Want me to tell you the truth or lie to protect your feelings?”

I let my look linger because apparently, he didn’t get the memo. Back the fuck off.

He shoves off the door, unmoved by my glare, and moseys my way. “I can tell you that I had a stack of paperwork to do—which is true. Or,” he says, stopping a few feet away from me, “I could tell you that a little birdie told me that you were seen in the parking lot by the ranger’s office with your favorite bartender.”