Page 54 of Major Love

Haven chews her thumb for a brief moment before saying, “The only thing that you’re ready for is bed, little tush.”

Tucker finds the energy to perk up at that, dimples popping as he smiles and then whispers, “Little tush.”

Haven breathes out a laugh and then turns her attention back to me, her expression apologetic as she rests her head against the doorframe.

“I’m so sorry, Sunday,” she says quietly. “I don’t know where his temperature came from. I guess some of the kids in his class were getting sick. But, for a minute there, I thought we’d passed it.”

I clutch my scarf tighter around my neck, shuffling in my snow-boots because it’s freezing right now.

“It’s okay,” I rasp back to her, “I totally understand. I’ll just do a shorter trail and then–”

Haven’s eyes widen and she shakes her head quickly.

“What? Sunday, no – I don’t want you doing a trail on your own. There’s no way you should do that. Especially when we have snow on the ground now.”

“Alpine Trail doesn’t even breach into the mountains,” I remind her.

It’s a state-maintained forest that’s barely on an undulating hill, making it one of the only outdoor places that Phoenix Falls natives go walking through at this time of year.

“There’ll probably be loads of other people there, and I’ll only stay ’til midday so that I don’t get caught in the afternoon downpour.”

When I checked my app this morning the weather predictions had changed again, so I’m not sure if it’s going to rain, hail, or snow, but either way I’ll be safely in Casey’s truck by then.

Haven makes a worried expression, twiddling with her soft brunette bun as she flicks her gaze between Tucker’s flushed cheeks and Casey’s Ford truck.

“We both know that he can’t come today,” I laugh. “I mean, just look at him.”

We both glance over to Tucker, who’s now fast asleep at the bottom of the stairwell.

With his dark messy hair, bronze skin and long black eyelashes, Tucker is the mirror image of Casey, through and through.

Haven must be thinking the exact same thing because she gently leans down to scoop him up, letting him rest his cheek against her shoulder. His little arms wrap around her neck and he curls up slightly against the chill from outside.

She twists her lips as she watches him sleep and then presses a tiny kiss against his forehead.

She looks almost shy when she smiles up at me again.

“He’s kind of a cutie, isn’t he?” she whispers, making me laugh as I peek down at him.

He’s undeniably totally gorgeous, and he’s still pretty tiny given his age.

“Text me how he is later,” I tell her, backstepping down the snowy porch so that I can get back to the toasty interior of Casey’s truck.

“Promise me you’ll only do the base of the trail, and that you’ll leave before midday,” Haven calls out to me.

“Yes to both,” I reply, before blowing two little kisses in their direction – one for Haven and one for Tuck.

“Okay, you better!” she demands, blowing me a kiss in return as I climb up into the driver’s side, and then I’m easing onto the slushy road, driving slowly as I make my way to the outskirts of town, the pine trees already towering over the hood when I’m barely two minutes away from Haven’s house.

It takes around fifty minutes before I reach the parking lot at the head of Alpine Trail, a drive that would have been shorter if I hadn’t been crawling at five miles per hour. And I’m not the most confident driver so I didn’t want to risk upping my pace on the icy roads.

I mean, sure, I passed my test but I’ve never been one of those people who’s obsessed with driving, hence why I wanted to behere, in the evergreen outdoors, walking beneath the trees so that I can finally feel rooted to something.

I put Casey’s truck in park and just sit there for a long moment, grateful to see that there are a bunch of other pick-ups and four-wheelers in the lot because otherwise I would have actually turned around.

I’m pretty risk averse so even if the forest rangers keep this trail accessible, the idea of being here totally alone would have definitely given me a moment of pause, even with the can of bear spray that’s poking out of my unzipped rucksack.

I slide my eyes toward the bear spray and fight back a smile, my thoughts back on that moment with Jason at the bar.

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