Page 83 of The Dangers of Daydreaming

I joined Finn and the Harrison group in touring the Orwell Corner Historic Village for my last day on the island. It was a beautiful, clear morning. Thehour drive was spent listening to music, and the three-hour tour and lunch were spent avoiding any topic deeper than the here and now. He bought me ice cream; I got him a funny little keychain. The Harrisons provided the perfect amount of chaos, and overall, it was a fantastic last day on the island.

On the way home, the little kids and their parents fell asleep. Gemma and Lily were deep in conversation about where to get dinner, and Hank had borrowed one of his daughter’s headphones to listen to an audiobook I’d recommended.

Finn turned down the music, glancing over at me. I tensed. Was this the moment? When he cut things off and said goodbye? I’d assumed it would be right before I got in my rental car to head to the airport, but maybe he didn’t want to put it off.

“Can I drive you back to the airport?” he asked instead.

My shoulders relaxed. “I’ll need to return my car.”

He nodded, fingers tapping on the wheel. “What if we drive separately to the drop off, and then I can take you the rest of the way? Then you don’t need to hire a car or shuttle to the airport.”

I wasn’t going to overanalyze his offer. “Sure, that would be great.”

“Awesome, when do you need to leave?”

I glanced at the dash and the clock there. “An hour or so.”

He nodded. “Okay, I’ll plan on it.”

Dropping off the rental was a fairly painless process, and then I found myself back in the car with Finn. Back to wondering how I was supposed to say goodbye to this guy who’d come to mean so much to me. Except it wasn’t really goodbye—we had projects to see through to the end. I just hoped this toe-curling relationship wasn’t going to downgrade to a few texts and some emails.

“Gram just texted,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“No change.”

I sighed back into the chair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too. But I’m glad nothing negative is happening. The doctors are reassured that his vitals still look good, but tomorrow, if there’s no change, we’ll be exploring options to entice him to wake up.”

“Please keep me updated.”

We turned onto the road to the airport. “You know I will.” He took a deep breath, glancing over at me. “We should talk.”

I fisted my hands in my lap. Clearly, we’d both put this off as long as possible. “Yeah.” I had about twenty minutes before I needed to check my bag. “We should.”

He parked in short-term parking and turned to face me, his forearm resting on the wheel. “I don’t want to get in the way of your work, and I don’t want to pressure you into anything, but I need you to know that I care and I…” He seemed to be searching for the words. “I want something with you, Luce. I want to make this work if we can.”

His words sent a tingle of pleasure down my spine, but for all my promises of not pushing him to be someone he wasn’t, I had to stand up for myself and what I needed. I needed to be practical. “What would that even look like, though?” So help me, if he said we could just play it by ear… I wasn’t looking to get hurt. I liked him too, and I didn’t want to make him change who he was, but if he wasn’t willing to put in the work to do what he said he wanted, I wasn’t sure I could commit.

“Talking, for starters.” He smiled. “They’ve got these great things called phones. And video calls. Texts. I just want to see what’s here. I’m not asking for a big commitment, but I really like you, Lucy. I want to see where this can go.”

“It wouldn’t be easy.”

“I’m not looking for easy.”

“Planning ahead would be necessary. There’s a time difference, and we both have our lives. I know how you hate to—”

“Luce.” He grabbed my hand that had started to wave in the air, punctuating my words and giving release to some of the anxiety I was feeling. “I know I don’t have the best track record, but I can do all of that. I promise. I’ll not just plan, I’ll overplan. You’ll be getting a schedule from me within the hour, detailing every moment I expect you to talk with me. FaceTime or Zoom invites are going to overwhelm your inbox. If you’ll give me a chance.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Even when I was so filled with anxiety over this conversation and what the future would look like, he could still make me smile. And just like that, the ball was in my court. I needed to face it head-on even if it meant some pain. Maybe lots of it. I took a deep breath.

“Okay,” I said.

“That sounded like a question.” If he hadn’t been holding my hand so tightly, I might have thought he was relaxed and amused. But this was a big deal to him, too.

“It’s not. It’s really not.” I took a deep breath. Now or never. Time to jump into the deep end. “I like you. Let’s try this. Let’s…”

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