I nodded, agreeing although I couldn't really agree to moving in with him. Even if I was sorta-kinda-maybe already there.
We were quiet as we walked, the weight of not hating each other lifting and falling down around us. Saying those words snapped the cord of tension we'd been twisting and winding for weeks—but it also broke all the vows of only temporary, just for now, just a fling.
Not hating a fling was serious business, or so I assumed, seeing as I didn't have many flings to my name and none in recent memory. But I knew I wasn't supposed to have not-hating feelings. Not when this place was only a detour for me.
This was a detour, right? This wasn't my destination.
I stopped, looked up at the bare branches, blinked hard at the sun. This wasn't where I was meant to be. It just wasn't.
"Okay there?" Linden asked.
"Yeah. Fine. Just thought I saw an owl."
"Not in the middle of the afternoon but maybe a hawk. A lot of those guys around here."
"Wait." I pressed a hand to his chest. "You never finished telling me why you're single, or why you've been single, and how that has anything to do with being a triplet."
He covered my hand with his. "I thought we'd moved on to more important topics."
"Like I said earlier, I spend enough time fixated on my problems. Let's talk about yours instead."
He laughed. "I don't have any problems."
"You're a thirty-six-year-old bachelor. Society would beg to differ." We started walking again, our hands clasped. "At least tell me about the triplet thing. I want to hear more about that."
"We grew up together, as you know, and we did everything together. We really did have our own tiny world—but then we finished high school and split up. It was a huge shock to the system. For the first time ever, I wasn't within an arm's reach of Ash and Magnolia."
"That must've been tough."
"It was weird," he replied. "It made me realize how much I prefer being alone and having things that belong only to me. They were still my best friends and I'd spend more time with them than anyone else, but not sharing everything with my siblings turned out to be very good for me. I don't mean that in a secretive way. It's like I learned to hear myself think for the first time and I couldn't go back to the way things used to be. Also, I think that split was good for them too. Ash stopped trying to herd us like cats, Magnolia stopped inventing things for us to do. We found things that interested us separately instead of everything being collaborative."
Out of absolutely nowhere, I said, "I don't have any siblings. A lot of cousins, but I wouldn't call any of them friends."
"Why not?"
"Lots of reasons." I didn't want to add to that. "You're all about solitude but you still dragged yourself next door and introduced yourself the minute I pulled into the driveway. Explain that."
"We've been over this."
"The attempted burglary, yes, but why did you keep inviting yourself over to the hot-mess house?"
"First of all, you invited yourself to my house after we met," he said. "But after that, I knew I'd be a suspect if you turned up dead. I had to keep tabs on you unless I wanted to be hauled in for questioning."
"Seriously," I chided.
"Seriously?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I couldn't sleep. Knowing you were all alone over there."
"But you like being alone. It's your thing."
He jerked his chin up as a deer, about twenty feet ahead, crossed our path. "This was different."
Since I couldn't cope with any more not-hating sentiments but I still wanted to press this bruise, I said, "Okay, you like being alone. How far does that reach? Have you sworn off relationships too?"
"It's been a couple of years since I've thought much about relationships. The casual thing works well enough for me."
"What happened a couple of years ago?"
"Nothing," he replied with too much conviction to ignore.
"Something."
He blew out an irritable breath. "I don't usually talk about this."
"I don't usually walk through the woods and I never wear pants and sneakers. Do you understand that? I'm a dress girl but I'm wearing leggings and ugly flat shoes because you told me to, and that requires you to return the favor by telling me all your gross, mushy secrets."
"I don't have gross or mushy secrets," he replied with a laugh.
"Then tell me about the thing you don't usually talk about."
Linden shot me a sidelong glance. "You talk so much. Do you know that? Like, nonstop."
"I do know that. Along with being exceptionally distracting when I want to be, I can talk the proverbial dog off the meat wagon. I can talk to walls and get them to respond to me. It's one of my many gifts and talents."
"Am I the dog or the wall?"
"Neither," I replied. "But you are the person who has heard all my gross, mushy secrets."
"Fair enough," he grumbled. "When I was in my twenties, there was someone. We were close through college and shared the same circle of friends so we were always hanging out once we were out of school too. Camping trips, snowboarding trips, beach trips. Always in the same group. I had feelings for him, some big feelings. Bigger than I'd had before then, and I'd dated more than my share of people during college."
I smothered a laugh at his bashful grin.
"There were a few times when we got close to—I don't know—something. But then he started seeing someone or I started seeing someone and it didn't happen."
He stopped, kneeled down to inspect some flowers alongside the path. I wasn't positive though it seemed like the flowers were not part of his overall inspection of these woods but an opportunity to stop speaking.
That was fair. I'd stared at a lot of flowers and rocks in these woods to avoid talking about my issues too.
"I spent a ton of time thinking about those feelings. Obsessing, really. I was always working up the nerve to tell him. It went on for years, even after we hooked up on a camping trip. I had a clear shot at asking for more and I didn't take it. Sometimes I think back on that and wonder what the fuck was wrong with me."
"I literally ask myself that every single day," I replied. "The other day, I relived an intern orientation meeting I led twelve or thirteen years ago. I don't understand how anyone put up with me. I was the absolute worst."
Linden squeezed my hip, saying, "It wasn't as bad as you remember. Promise. And neither were you."
"Back to your obsessing. I need to hear the rest of this. It's really helping to recalibrate the scales in terms of which of us is the disaster. I've been the hard favorite for much too long."
"There isn't a rest of the story. I didn't say anything. He moved to Idaho and I didn't tell him."
"Just because he moved doesn't mean you can't—"
"I know," he interrupted. "I know. After he left town, I decided I was ready to reach out because distance didn't matter. Why would it, you know? I'd made it through all these years of keeping those feelings to myself, I could make it through some distance too. But there was an accident."