Page 34 of Love Notes

Conor headed off first, then Sam and Ben, but Haider lingered a little, ostensibly checking something on his phone.

“Cupid?”I called out, and his head whipped around.“You okay?”

He nodded slowly as I closed the space between us.

“I’m sorry I was a dick about Brauning,” I said, even though I didn’t regret what I’d charged him for the roses at Founders Day.“I’m sorry you’re upset he’s gone.”

“He’s just not what you’d expect,” Haider said in a soft voice.Then his mouth twitched.“Which is lucky, becauseyouthink he’s theworst.”

“Yeah.”I winced.“I really do.”

Haider laughed and hugged me.Hard.I hugged him back.“You curmudgeon, you.”

“Nobody uses that word nowadays.”

“I just did.”He squeezed my ribs a final time before letting me go.“You’d make an excellent mentor, by the way, if that’s why Mr.Carver was telling you about that kid.”

I was sure my face told him exactly what I thought of that.

“You would.”Haider patted me on the cheek.“Now get out of here.Don’t neglect Adam for me.”

I rolled my eyes and then said, “Will you be okay?”

“I have cats and chocolate,” he said.“I’ll be fuckingincredible.”

“You always are,” I told him.“But call me, okay, if you need anything?”

Haider nodded and gave me one last quick hug before he drove away.

I walked over to my truck.Adam was leaning against it.

“Cupid for the curls?”he asked me.

It took me a moment to catch up.“Nah.His birthday is Valentine’s Day.When we were kids—” I snorted.“Well, we still use them now, sometimes.Our nicknames.Sam is Joker, because he was born on April Fool’s Day.And Conor is Jedi, because his birthday is May the 4th.”

“And who are you?”Adam asked, eyes bright.

“Paddy,” I said.“March 17.My first day in Caldwell Crossing, on the school bus, they got me to sign Conor’s cast, and then Sam was all, ‘When’s your birthday, Ryan?When’s your birthday?’And I told him it was Saint Patrick’s Day, and the three of them just broke out in cheers.The bus driver had to tell Haider to sit down, he was bouncing so much.”I rubbed the back of my neck.“I used to wonder if they’d still be friends with me if my birthday had been some other day.”

“Pretty sure they would have,” Adam said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.“Probably.Sam used to say it must have been magic.But, then again, he was twelve.”

“I don’t know.”Adam slid his hand into mine.“It seems a little like magic to me.Or fate, maybe.”

“What’s the difference?”

The glow from the nearby streetlight caught on his throat as he tilted his head back to laugh.“I have no idea.Magic has always seemed like some guy in a pointy hat with a spell, you know?Like a character out of a Saturday morning cartoon.But fate is more…big?Yeah, fate is bigger.Fate is the universe getting things right.Not a spell, exactly, but a pattern.”

I tilted my head back too and looked at the stars for a moment while I mulled over Adam’s words.I liked the idea of there being a pattern, of the universe getting things right.It was easy to believe on a beautiful night like this, with Adam beside me.

“Okay, so maybe fate,” I said, looking at him.“Because I think it got it right by bringing me to Caldwell Crossing.”

“I couldn’t imagine you anywhere else,” he said, his smile fading.

And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it?Everything hung on it.My past, my future, and Adam and I together.Because I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else either, not in a million years.

WE DROVE BACKto the cabin in comfortable silence.It was a bright night: the moon was almost full, and the only clouds were thin and wispy, carried swiftly past the stars by the breeze.As we turned off the road onto the gravel driveway that led to the cabin, I heard a barred owl calling.

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