In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(85)

“What are you doing here, Evie?” He asks in a rush. I take a half-step forward and he takes two steps back, his hands gripping the metal frame of the shelf he’s backed into like he needs the anchor to keep himself grounded. In all this frantic motion, he’s sure to keep his body away from mine. We don’t touch anywhere, and I feel that absence like a hand to my chest, demanding distance. His eyes search mine, desperate and a little bit hurt. “What’s your plan? Are you coming or are you going?”

“What are you talking about? I thought I was coming home.” His face crumples and I have no idea what’s going on. “Do you want me to leave? I don’t understand.”

He pushes off the shelf but I reach out and grip his t-shirt in both hands, hauling him close. “No. No, you explain what the hell you’re talking about. Right now, Beckett.”

“You left.”

“Yes.” I left for two days. I came right back. I bought him a stupid gas station t-shirt and a koozie for his beer.

He curls his hands around my wrists and squeezes gently, urging me to let go of his shirt. I do, and he takes three steps across the small space, his back against the same table he propped me up on two nights ago. I can barely make out the shape of the man who pressed a kiss to my neck and tangled a flower in my hair.

“You didn’t bother to tell me,” he says. “I thought you left for good.”

“I left a note.” Right in the middle of the table. Next to a thermos of coffee and a stack of mail.

“There was no note.”

“But I left one.” I think about the scribbles at the bottom of the page, how I agonized over what to write. Guess that didn’t matter. “I drew flowers on it. Tulips.”

He doesn’t move an inch, not even a flex of his fingers at his side. “There wasn’t a note on the table when I got home. There wasn’t anything.”

A lead weight sinks in my chest.

“I left all of my stuff in the spare bedroom.”

“I didn’t check.”

“Well, maybe you should have,” I snap. All he had to do was crack open the door to see my laundry thrown all over the place.

“I didn’t want to see an empty room.” His response thunders out of him, a fist against the table. “I didn’t want to look at the place you were and find you gone.”

“You think I could just leave?”

He shrugs and I know exactly what he’s going to say the moment before he says it.

“You’ve never had trouble leaving,” he accuses, and I feel the words like a slice against my skin.

That was before, I want to tell him. Before I stood in your kitchen and watched you make pancakes. Before I sat on your back porch and listened to you talk about the stars. Before you trusted me with all of your smiles. Before you let me know you.

Before I fell in love with you.

“You’ll leave again,” he adds as an afterthought, his shoulders curling in. He looks exhausted, completely spent. Dark circles under his eyes and a strain in the lines of his body that I haven’t seen since that night at the bar, when everything was too loud around him.

“You’re gonna keep leaving, Evie.” His face twists in naked longing.”Why wouldn’t you?”

Oh, I think quietly. There it is.

“Then ask me to stay.” The words are out of my mouth before I can consider them. They hold in the space between us, impatient. Pleading.

His eyes meet mine and he shakes his head once.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He swallows hard, a catch in the strong line of his throat. He stares at me for a long time. So long, I think he won’t answer the question.

“I dreamt about you,” he says, his voice rough. He looks embarrassed to say such a lovely thing. “After those two night in Maine, I dreamt about you all of the time. When we ran into each other again that night on the street, I thought I had fallen asleep for a second. You were so beautiful.” He swallows again and looks down at his boots, gathering himself. He looks back at me, eyes bright. “Having you here has felt like that. A dream. But I think we both know it has to end, yeah? You’ve got a great big life outside this tiny town and that’s okay. That’s the best thing, really. You glow like—you glow like the fucking sun and you shouldn’t bottle that up here. You shouldn’t waste your light. I thought I could be happy with whatever pieces of you I got. I thought it would be enough. But then you left and I realized it—it won’t be. You’ll take a piece of me every time you go until I’ve got nothing left. I can’t keep standing here and watching you walk away from me.”

But I’ll bring your pieces back, I want to say. I’ll bring them back and give you some of mine, too.

Silence rings between us, a faint buzzing in my ears.

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

He looks so tired, propped up against the table. He drags his palm over his face. “What?”

“How long have you been expecting me to leave? After our date?” I swallow hard and will the hum in my blood to settle. “After we had sex?” He’s too still, over by the windows, the shadows twisting around his ankles and cloaking him in darkness. “You really thought I’d just leave, without a word? You think I could do that?”