The wall that he’s putting between us drops for just one minute and I see the pain I caused on his face as he swallows and looks away from me.
“I’m staying in Destiny Falls. I already turned down the position out in Boston.”
He nods, watching me carefully.
“I was wondering, hoping, that maybe you would give me a second chance.”
“So that you can run away again when things get hard?”
I deserve that but it still stings.
“No. I talked to Stan last night and I know that I’ve been acting childish. I need to face my problems. I’m not going anywhere. This is my home and I’ve found my family. I’m not going anywhere.”
Teller eyes me, and I hold my breath waiting for his answer.
“I’m sorry, Sutton, but I can’t. I have to protect my heart. I don’t think that I could survive you walking away from me again.”
Pinpricks hit the back of my eyes and my throat gets tight as I try to keep the tears from coming and swallow against the pain. I nod, looking down at my hands in my lap. My fingers keep twisting together and I can’t stop fiddling. I don’t want to cry in front of him. I don’t want to make this more awkward.
“I’m going to show you. I’ll prove that I’m never walking away again,” I vow, my throat thick with emotion as I stand from the couch.
I can feel Teller’s eyes on me as I head outside and back to my Beetle and when I’m climbing into the driver’s seat, I look up and meet his gaze. He looks just as torn up as I feel, but I know that he’s right.
I need to prove it to him. I need to show that he’s the man for me and that I’m never going to run away from him again.
I stop for pizza on the drive home and when I walk in the door with it, Stan gives me a pitying look. He seems just as upset as I am that things didn’t work out with Teller and that I’m back here. At least Bandit is happy to see me come back.
“What happened? He wasn’t home?” Stan asks as he grabs us some plates and puts the can of soup that he was probably going to heat up for dinner away.
“No, he was,” I say, trying to keep the sadness from my voice. “Things just didn’t go as well as I wanted.”
“I’m sorry, Sutton,” he says as we take our seats at the table.
“It’s okay,” I say after a beat. “I’m not giving up. I love him and I know that he loves me. I just need to do something to show him that I’m not going to leave when things get tough again.”
Stan nods, eyeing me intently as I force myself to take a bite of pizza, chew, and swallow.
“Alright, I’m in,” he finally says and my gaze flies to meet his.
“What?”
“I’m in,” he says again, firmer this time.
“You’re in?”
“Yeah, whatever your plan is to win him back, I’m in. I’ll help you.”
I’m a little shocked by his offer but then a sense of ease fills me. I’ve got my family in my corner.
“Thanks, Stan,” I say quietly, and I mean it.
“Don’t mention it. Now, what did you have planned?”
24
So, Stan and I may have started a fire.
A small one and it was completely by accident but that’s how Stan, Bandit, and I end up lined up in the front yard. We’re all soaking wet from the sprinklers and we’re dripping water, leaving puddles at our feet.
It’s been a week of Stan, Lyla, Madelyn, Iris, and I brainstorming ideas of what to do to show Teller that I’m all in. That I love him and that I’m not going to run from him or us again. Funny enough, the idea hit me when we ordered Chinese food one night and I remembered how Teller said that the fortune cookies from the place in town were his favorite.
A quick Pinterest search and we found this cute little handmade fortune cookie box. The post even came with plans on how to make it, and it had seemed so easy. That post was a lie as Stan and I soon learned.
We spent an hour at the hardware store last night looking at all of the different kinds of wood. The post hadn’t said which kind to buy, just the length that we needed to cut it into and apparently the employees at the hardware store are not equipped to answer any questions about making a fortune cookie box. Seeing Stan argue with them had been pretty entertaining though.
We ended up grabbing three different kinds of wood, figuring that we would find some use for the other ones around the Mystery Cabin.
Then we had to figure out how to cut the boards and that’s where the real trouble started.
Teller walks over to the three of us and Stan crosses his arms over his chest, acting and looking like a kid who knows that he’s in trouble. Normally, the image would have me smiling, but I’m too nervous about what Teller is about to say.
I’m still clutching the pieces of the wooden fortune cookie, the pieces of wood rough and uneven in my arms as I stare at Teller.
He’s dressed in his heather gray Destiny Falls Fire Department T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and a pair of black boots, his face blank as he stares down at the three of us.
The other firefighters are packing up the truck. The sprinklers took care of the fire but they still did a walk-through to be safe and told us that we would need to replace the curtain and a small section of the wall. They left Teller to find out how the fire started.
“What the heck happened here?”
Stan just points a finger at me, throwing me under the bus, and I glare at him.
“It was an accident,” I say, gripping the wooden pieces tighter as nerves hit me.
Man, this was a stupid idea. I should have picked a different way to apologize and tell Teller that I love him.
“What was an accident?” Teller asks, growing exasperated with us and our vague answers.
“The fire. I was trying to make you something, as a way to say sorry and to show you how I felt about you, and things just got away from us.”
“That’s an understatement,” Stan mumbles under his breath and I glare at him again.
“You were right there with me,” I remind him and he huffs out an annoyed sound, rolling his eyes.
Teller’s eyes drop to the disaster that I’m holding and it looks like he doesn’t know if he should laugh or yell at us.
“What is that?” He asks, his voice cold and distant like it has been ever since I got back to town.
My nerves ratchet up another notch and I can feel my emotions threatening to drown me. I just want to see him give me one of those easy going grins. I want to hear him say my name in that way of his that sounds like a caress.
“I...” My chin starts to wobble and I can feel the tears starting to spill over my eyes. “I’m so sorry!” I cry, clutching the wood to my soaked T-shirt. “I was trying to make you a fortune cookie box. All of the Pinterest posts made it look so easy but then I couldn’t figure out how to work the tools and Stan didn’t know either—”
“Wait, you were using my tools?” Teller interjects, looking worried. I wonder if it’s because of my tears or the fact that we were using his tools.
Stan and I both nod, looking guilty, and now it looks like Teller is leaning more toward yelling at us.
“What were you trying to do? How did the fire get started?”