“I think I’m done being a nomad.” She almost laughs. Almost. I turn to her, but she’s staring at the house, her eyes unfocused. “I think it’s time to put down some roots. I was considering somewhere closer to Gina, but… she’ll be gone soon, so here’s as good as anywhere. At least here I have Zeke and Dean, you know?” She turns to me, a sad smile marring her beautiful features. “I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to build friendships or relationships, and I’m…” She heaves out a sigh. “I’m tired of being lonely.”
Dean calls before I can respond, and he lets us know it’s safe to come back. Jamie and I don’t speak on the walk back, which is fine because I truly don’t think I have anything she wants to hear.
She’s ready to build a life here, and I’m…
I’m stuck where I am.
There’s only one way things could possibly work between us. I just… I don’t know how to get us there.
Dean’s waiting by his car when we get back to the house, and he gives us both a quick rundown of the showing and tells us that we’re likely to get an offer within the next few days. Jamie seems elated by the news, but I’m too busy drowning in my own thoughts to even react. “Are you heading off now?” I ask Dean.
“Yeah, man. Why? You need a ride?”
Zeke’s Diner is exactly as I remember it, and as much as I wish it brought on some kind of joyful nostalgia, it doesn’t.
It physically hurts to walk through the doors, to sit in the same booth that Jamie and I once claimed as ours—even going as far as etching our names on the windowsill: Holden + Jamie.
I sit down at the same spot that I did the first time I came here... when I watched her unfold a napkin, put pen to paper, and take my breath away with a single stroke. It was right here that I heard her laugh for the first time and saw her vulnerability on full display. We celebrated every achievement, every milestone, every day we managed to keep it together after the attack.
I run a finger along the windowsill and picture the concentration etched on her features as she worked on each stroke of every letter of my name—a pile of ink-stained napkins discarded between us.
I kept every single one.
Even the ones from before we got together.
I held on to them like puzzle pieces, each one giving me a clue into who she was and how she got here.
I still don’t have all the pieces.
“God, you were just kids back then…” Zeke’s words pull me from my thoughts and up from my seated position. I stand in front of him—barely a man—looking into the eyes of the one person I know could give me what I want. What I need. The final piece to the puzzle.
“Zeke.” I hug him. And I didn’t even realize it was what I needed until I’m actually doing it.
During the months after our attack, Zeke and I became close. Jamie’s physical and mental recovery became our priority, and we worked in tandem to make sure she got through it. She was way stronger than we both expected, but she was also… lost. And confused. The problem was, she didn’t know it at the time. And neither of us had the heart to tell her because all we wanted back then, and I’m sure even now, was for her to be happy.
“It’s good to see you, kid,” Zeke says, slapping my back twice before letting me go. “Jamie didn’t mention you were in town.”
He slides into the booth, and I sit opposite him. “I just got in yesterday.”
Zeke nods. “When do you leave?”
“Tonight.”
“That’s a quick visit.”
“Yeah, I gotta get back to work.”
Zeke nods again, leaning forward, his forearms resting on the table. “So, what’s up?”
I lean back in the seat. “Well, I should probably start by saying sorry for the whole punching you thing.”
His eyebrows lift.
I continue, “I had a lot going on at the time. I’d just come back from visiting a college that would take away from Jamie, and when I got back, I went straight to the pool house to see her, and it was trashed, and I was worried that something had happened to her, and then you showed up, and you gave me her old drawing and told me she was gone, and I... I just—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he interrupts. “I told Jamie I’d have done the same.”
“Still.” I shrug. “It wasn’t right. You’re like a father to her, and I shouldn’t have laid a hand on you.”
“Apology accepted.” He cracks a smile. “Now quit the bullshit. Why are you here?”
I force out an exhale and sit taller. “Is she happy?”
He cocks his head to one side. “What exactly are you asking me?”
“I want her back, Zeke.”
He nods as he settles in, extending his arm over the back of the booth. “Does she know that?”
“I haven’t said the exact words…”
“Why not?”
I swallow, nervous. “Because I don’t know if fighting for her—for us—is going to make things worse. If she’s happy, then I’ll leave. I’ll get back on a plane to North Carolina, and I’ll never contact her again, and she can live the life she deserves.”
Zeke works his jaw, watching me, scrutinizing my every word. Finally, he states, “I don’t know.”
Disappointment slams against my chest, weakening every muscle, every beat of my heart. “All right.”
“I can tell you this,” Zeke says, sitting forward again. “I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you, but things change, Holden. You guys—you’re not the same kids who vandalized my diner.” He jerks his head toward the window, and I chuckle in response. “Now, I have a question for you.”
“Go for it.”
“Where the fuck have you been the past five years?”
“I—”
“Did she tell you why she left?”
I drop my gaze, shame biting at my insides. “I told her I didn’t want to know.”
“Well, it might be better that way,” he’s quick to say. He waits until I lift my eyes to add, “She came back to you, Holden. Not once. Not twice. But three times now. If that isn’t a clear enough message, then I don’t know.” He gets out of the booth and stands right over me. “Do you have it?” he asks.
“Have what?”
“That missing piece of the puzzle…”
“Jamie!” I slam my fist on the pool house door. I’d gotten back only minutes ago, and she wasn’t in the house, and now I’m hoping—praying—that she’s home because my ride to the airport is almost here, and I’m running out of time. “Jamie!”
The curtains shift, and she appears, her phone to her ear. Eyebrows drawn, she slides the door open. “I’ll call you back, Gina,” she says, eyeing the bags by my feet before hanging up. “What’s so urgent?” She steps back when I reveal the bouquet I’d been hiding behind my back.
“What is this?” she asks, taking them from me.
“I never bought you flowers,” I tell her, my words rushed, driven by adrenaline. “Which is dumb because I know how much you love flowers. And I never asked you out properly. I never took you on dates. I never wooed you, Jamie.”