“I’d love to. Let me put something warmer on and I’ll be right out.”
She nodded once, eyes flicking to Emery’s journal before she ducked out of the tent. I cursed under my breath, dressing quickly and pulling my hair up into a messy knot on top of my head before joining her by the fire.
Nora poured me a fresh cup of coffee, adding a little pumpkin spice flavored creamer to it before handing me the steaming mug. I inhaled the scent, a wide smile finding my lips.
Fall.
“There was one summer when I thought Glen was being unfaithful,” Nora said, and I nearly choked on my coffee.
I managed to swallow it down, giving her my full attention, not sure where that confession came from. “Really?”
She nodded, sipping from her own mug. “It was dreadful. We were young, married only a few years, and those years were rough. In fact, the first five years of our marriage were the hardest. But I didn’t know there would be brighter days then, and I thought he had found comfort in another woman.” Nora shook her head. “I went crazy, badgering him about where he was when he wasn’t home, listening from the other room when he was on the phone, even following him once.”
I didn’t know what to say, or why she was telling me the story, so I stayed quiet, drinking my coffee.
“He wasn’t. Cheating, that is.” She smiled then. “No, he was planning a surprise party for our fourth wedding anniversary, and it was one of my best friends he was talking to on the phone so late at night. He was helpless when it came to planning anything, still is,” she added with a chuckle. “So my friend Barbara helped him. When I found out, when they surprised me, I burst into tears. Not for the party though, but for the fact that he was still mine.”
I smiled a little then, hands wrapped around my mug.
“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”
She said the last word with a raise of her eyebrows, and I flushed, lowering my coffee until it rested on my knee.
“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” I admitted, glancing around us to make sure he wasn’t around. I couldn’t tell her that I barely knew him, that I wanted to, that I knew more than I should because I’d snooped already and now I couldn’t stop. “He’s just… his mind is complicated. Sometimes I read just to know him more.”
“I know it seems impossible, but you have to have patience, Cooper.”
I felt like I was getting a scolding from a mother I’d never had, and I dropped my head.
“There may be things he hasn’t told you yet. Hell, there may be things he will never tell you. But you don’t get to decide which thoughts are which, or when you get to learn more about him, or when that trust goes deeper than where it is already. You only get to be there for the ride, holding on, showing him you’re not going anywhere. And every now and then, you’ll get to see inside him — really see inside him — and you’ll cherish it. And your love will grow. And you’ll realize why you waited.”
I nodded, thumb tracing the black porcelain of my mug. “You’re right.” It was all I could manage without telling her the entire situation, because even though she was speaking to me as if I were his wife, I heard it as his friend — as his new friend.
I hadn’t earned those script confessions yet.
“Thanks, Nora.”
She smiled then, lifting her mug and tilting it toward me from across the fire. “Unsolicited advice is my forte, sweetie. Now, drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
The conversation was easy and light after that, and we were laughing when the guys returned. Glen swooped down to kiss Nora’s forehead as soon as they reached us and Kalo licked my cheek with the same enthusiasm, but Emery disappeared straight into the tent. When I followed, he wouldn’t look at me. He just started packing, saying we should get on the road.
When I asked if everything was okay, he assured me it was, but that assurance wasn’t sealed with a kiss or a hug or even a smile.
We couldn’t thank Glen and Nora enough for their hospitality as we loaded up the car and hugged them goodbye, exchanging numbers to keep in touch. Emery seemed back to normal in front of them, but as soon as we headed toward the car, he handed me the keys, climbing into the passenger seat and pulling his hoodie up over his head as Kalo climbed over him into the backseat.
It was a bad day.
I didn’t need to ask this time, or pry, or beg him to talk. I knew from the look on his face, from the way he desperately tore his bag apart for his journal, letting it rest in his lap, pen at the ready.
So, I fired up the engine, ready to drive in silence. But before we pulled away, I reached out with a shaky hand, my cold fingers finding his wrist.
He stiffened.
When he didn’t pull away, I slid down farther, and he turned his hand up, letting me lace my fingers with his for just a moment, just long enough to squeeze and let him know I was there.
Then, I pulled my hand back, put the car in drive, and we were on the road again.
It wasn’t just a bad day.
It was a really, really bad day.
The warmth and playfulness I’d felt from Emery the past two days was completely gone, replaced by a shell, by skin stretched over bones and hollow eyes and lips that didn’t open.
I knew the drive would be long and quiet, so I just listened to the radio for the four hours until we made it to Rio Grande. But even when we were there, surrounded by another natural wonder in Colorado, Emery didn’t seem to care.
We did a short hike through the park, but he didn’t talk, didn’t hold my hand, didn’t even offer to hold Kalo’s leash. So, once we made it back to the car, I didn’t even ask if he wanted to stay for the night, just loaded us all back in and settled in for a long night drive to the Grand Canyon.
Emery held onto his journal the entire time, but didn’t write down a single word.
It was almost midnight by the time I pulled us into one of the historic hotels near the Grand Canyon, and Emery just stood beside me with our bags as I checked us in. The only sound he’d made all day came when I tried to put the room on my card and he simply said, “No,” before shoving his own card forward.
The room was small, and Emery dropped his bag on the bed, stripping his shirt off and immediately making his way to the bathroom. It locked with a click behind him and I exhaled long and loud, flopping down onto my bed with Kalo already at my feet, ready to be fed. I rubbed her ears, stretching out my muscles that were tight from driving all day. I hadn’t even had the time to do yoga that morning, since Emery had been so eager to get on the road, and I felt the difference — not just physically, but mentally, too.
When Kalo was fed and watered, I rummaged through my bag, pulling out the last set of clean sleep clothes I had and laying them on the bed. Emery emerged not too long after, steam billowing out around him as he dried his hair with one towel, the other tied around his waist. I swallowed as I watched the water droplets drip down his chest and over his tight abdomen, but he didn’t notice.