Page 59 of Fight Or Flight

The reminder that Natalie was leaving stung. Part of Ethan wanted to leave with Adam. Go home to lick his wounds and try to move on. The other part screamed to soak up as much time with her as he could. He’d thought the same the night before when she’d walked away from his truck and closed the door. But he just couldn’t walk away, even though the end was inevitable.

“Natalie?”

She tilted her eyes up to meet his. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing for the rest of the day?”

“Uh, the last four Monroes are coming to collect their junk between ten and eleven. That’s it, really.”

“You want to hang out after?”

A smile came over her face. “Hang out?”

“Yeah. One last day before you leave. We can go to the beach, have a picnic, get ice cream. It’ll be fun.”

She narrowed her dark eyes at him and smirked. “Is this a bad idea?”

Ethan laughed. “I honestly can’t tell anymore.”

She looked out the window at the polling station before turning back to him. For a long beat, she just stared at him—long enough for him to question his choice at least ten times.

“Okay. I’m in.”

He smiled and leaned down, kissing her breathless until a loud throat being cleared reminded him he was in public. He pulled away from Natalie and looked up. Behind the counter stood one of Lindsay’s best friends, Dani, wearing an apron and a scowl.

Dammit. He forgot she worked there.

“Ethan,” she said, nose scrunched as if she’d just smelled a dead body.

Ethan sighed. This would for sure come back to bite him. But he decided to deal with it the way he’d been dealing with everything else for the past twelve hours; he pretended it wasn’t a problem and decided to worry about it later.

“Dani,” he said with a polite nod. “We’ll have two coffees and two breakfast poutines, please.”

After casting his vote and rescheduling his appointments to the following week, Ethan hastily threw together a picnic lunch for two, grabbed some towels and a Frisbee, and packed it all up into a bag. Then he changed into his navy-blue swim shorts and threw on a grey University of Toronto faculty T shirt, sunglasses,and his favourite Blue Jays hat. He jogged out the door and drove to Monroe Manor, arriving just before lunch. Natalie was sitting on the porch waiting for him, as she had been the day they went waterfalling, back when he hadn’t yet allowed himself to see how perfect she was.

Then his eyes had opened, two days before she was getting on a plane and leaving forever.

She wore a blue dress he hadn’t yet seen, her black sunglasses and her gold sandals, with a towel folded over her forearm.

“Hi,” she said, hopping up into the truck with a smile. She leaned over for a sweet kiss that made his skin blaze and his heart ache.

“Hey.” He shook off the dread and reminded himself to focus on the now.

He drove the winding road down to the beach. The parking lot was full, and the long stretch of soft sand was heavily dotted with colourful umbrellas and chairs. White sailboats drifted in the distance on the calm, sparkling blue lake. He found a spot and parked his truck, slung the bag over his shoulder, and took Natalie’s hand.

They walked along the paved path that led from the parking lot to the beach until Natalie stopped abruptly and stared down at a lush garden that filled the spaces where two paths converged.

“Hey, this has your name on it,” she said, pointing down at a metal plaque staked into the soil.

“Yeah, this is a pollinator project I worked on three years ago. Before I turned my focus to the watershed. There are fifteen gardens in total along the paths.”

He pointed up and down the path in both directions. Each of the gardens had a small flowering tree that hosted butterflies and caterpillars and was underplanted with carefully chosen purple, pink, and orange wildflowers. He hadn’t been to thebeach yet that summer; he’d been avoiding it, knowing that Lindsay came often. But he knew the gardens would look good. They were well established by now and thriving without his attention.

He took a few steps and pointed past the parking lot. “We also did a dune restoration project over there.”

Natalie looked at the sand dunes rising from the ground where the beach gave way to the luxury homes that the most affluent of Mapletonians had built along North Shore Drive. There was an enormous area that he’d fenced off and planted with grasses. He was happy that it was coming along successfully.

“Wow,” she said, giving a contemplative look. “You really care about Mapleton, don’t you?”

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