In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(137)

“How did you…?”

“I found them online. Are they—do you like them?”

Rex’s finger looks huge tracing the tiny figure in the white dress. When he looks up at me, there are tears in his eyes.

“They’re just like the ones my mom had,” he says, pulling me to him and crushing me against his chest. “Thank you.”

He makes a big deal out of making me help him hang the ornaments on the tree. When we sit down again, he hands me his present. It’s wrapped perfectly, in thick silver paper, and it smells like wood shavings.

I tear off the paper and inside is a carved wooden box attached to an ornament hook. The box is three or four inches square and is made of several different kinds of wood.

“Great minds,” Rex murmurs. He’s gotten me an ornament as well.

“Did you make this?” I ask. “It’s beautiful.” Rex nods.

“I got the idea at Ginger’s. Looking at that puzzle box. I really liked that and I thought maybe I could make one. Turns out they’re harder than I thought,” he adds, sounding nervous. “Even a simple one.” His hands are clasped in his lap.

“Um, you have to open it,” he says.

I fiddle with the box, pulling on the corners and pushing the middle, then vice versa.

“Um….”

“Oh, you have to—” Rex points to a side piece and I slide it over. It takes me a minute—Jesus, this is an easy one?—but I finally hear a pop and it slides open.

“Ha!” I say, inordinately pleased with myself. Then I look inside.

It’s a key.

I look up at Rex, whose face is open, vulnerable and hopeful.

“I thought maybe you’d want to move in. Here. With me,” he says softly. It’s his shy voice. The voice he uses with strangers when he’s nervous. I look down at the box again. I pick up the key. It’s on a simple wooden keychain cut into the shape of Michigan. It weighs nothing in my palm, but it feels like the heaviest thing I’ve ever held.

“But,” I say, my mind racing. “But what if—what about the job? What if I get the job? We haven’t even talked about it and I—”

“Move in with me,” Rex says again, his voice resonant once more. “Live with me. Here, for now. Then, wherever. As long as you’re with me, I won’t care where we live.”

I swallow hard.

“You’d leave here? With me. But what about—” I gesture around us to the cabin Rex worked so hard to build. To the place he created out of grief and fear and desperation; the place that became a home.

I’m squeezing the key so tight I can feel its teeth cutting into my palm.

“Baby,” Rex says, putting warm hands on my shoulders, “I can build something else. Something just for us.” His eyes never leave mine. “I came here because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Didn’t have anyone. And now…. As long as I’m with you, I’ll be home.”

My eyes flood with tears.

Home.

I never felt at home in my father’s house. The apartments I’ve lived in since then have been crap. Just places to crash. Ginger’s apartment has been a home away from home—as close as I thought I might ever get to a place that feels right. That feels like home. Then I met Rex and, even that first night, when I thought I’d never see him again, something about him called out to something deep inside me. I love this cabin, these woods, but it’s not this place that feels like home. It’s Rex.

He’s looking at me, eyes tracking mine. I can see the moment he thinks I’m about to say no and it almost breaks my heart. I nod quickly, my mouth getting twisted around all the things I mean to say. So I just launch myself forward and hug him as tight as I can, arms around his neck and legs around his waist. Rex’s hugs feel like being wrapped in the warmest blanket.

We stay like that for a while, just holding each other, until I relax my grip and my fist that was clenching the key unfurls, revealing a perfect indentation of Michigan in my palm.




FINALLY, I haul myself off the couch to go to the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and my expression is unfamiliar. I look younger. Happy in a way I never have. I can’t help but think of the first time I saw myself in this mirror, Rex behind me, the night we met. I shake my head, thinking that if I’d told myself that night that I would be living in this cabin, I would probably have drowned myself in the shower laughing.

On the way back to the living room, my phone buzzes with a text. At first I don’t believe it can really be from Colin because there’s not a profanity or an insult in sight.

I’m okay, it says. Can’t talk yet. Merry Christmas.

“Holy shit,” I say. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

“What?” Rex asks, and while he seems relieved Colin’s all right, he doesn’t seem overly impressed with the message.

“Seriously,” I explain, following Rex into the kitchen, “this is unprecedented. This could be the only nonaggressive Colin text the archives will ever see.”

Rex pulls out a tray of gingerbread that’s been warming in the oven.

“Oh my god,” I groan. “That smells so good; what are you trying to do to me?” Rex waggles his eyebrows and wraps his arms around me from behind, kissing my hair.