Page 78 of Artfully Wild
JACOB
We did it.
We raised the money. We raised more than enough to build the extension to the shelter and have plenty left over to have a cushion to do something with later on or to use if we need more once we start construction. I already talked to Elias weeks ago about doing the plans for me and he has a contractor he knows well to do the hands on work. What Elias doesn’t know is the deal I made with Charlotte for her to do the interior work. I have no idea how much overlap there will be with their jobs, but I can’t imagine it’ll be much. They seem to try to avoid each other for the most part.
My next focus is on Sky who is beside me now, talking animatedly with Fran as she helps her pack up her booth. That is until she hugs her goodbye and starts to drag me behind her. I don’t even try to resist. I’d follow her anywhere.
She’s staying. Even though I know she really wants to travel. Or she did. We talked about her going once the store was set and she hired a manager, but I haven’t had a chance to check in with her. Luckily, the craziness of the festival and the holidays will die down enough that we will get time alone next week.
I catch up to her, bending down until I know she can feel my breath against her ear. “And just where are you taking me, little sparrow?”
“It’s a secret.”
I laugh and think about the last time we let each other in on our secrets. “I thought we were done with secrets.”
“Well, I have one more, but first,” she says, stopping in the middle of the road a few yards away from Main Street where we can still hear the clatter of people closing up their booths for the night.
“Can I have my Christmas present now?”
“So impatient.”
I reach my hand into the inside pocket of my coat where I’ve been keeping the plane tickets I bought a few days ago, waiting for the right moment to give them to her. She gawks at them. Not in surprise like I thought she would, but like she is unsure how she wants to react.
“Jacob,” she starts. “I don’t…I don’t know what to say. This is too much…and I can’t go,” she says. “I have to stay here for the store and honestly Iwantto stay here. We have our whole lives to travel if we want to do that later, but we both have way too much going on to leave now. And if you think I am allowing you to get on a plane, you’re an idiot. We are staying here and we can hike and I’ll paint the mountains or maybe even you.”
Relief courses through me. “Thank fuck.”
She laughs at me.
“I really didn’t want to fly.”
“I know. Now, I have a present for you.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
She grabs my hand and pulls me away from Main Street again and in the direction of Hudson and Avery’s cabin.
“Where are we going? Are Hudson and Avery still at the festival? Because I really don’t want a repeat of last time. One time seeing your brother’s ass was enough.”
“Just shut up and follow me.”
She tugs me behind and I don’t try to resist her. I’d follow her anywhere. “You’re really going to make us walk all the way there?”
“Absolutely not.” The keys to her old truck jingle as she fishes them out of her coat pocket and we head to where she parked it in front of her store.
Once we reach Hudson and Avery’s cabin, we drive past it to the empty lot next door with the lake stretching behind it. The freshly layered snow sparkles in the moonlight.
“Why are we here?”
“C’mon,” she persists, pulling me further until we are in the middle of the lot where there’s a blanket spread out. She then proceeds to lay down on top of it, yanking me down with her. I feel the cold through my layers almost immediately, but I stay down here with her, because she asked me to.
“Just look up at the stars and imagine it,” she says softly, looping her arm through mine and cuddling closer.
“Imagine what?”
“A window above us. That we fall asleep under every night with the stars above us. In a house all our own.”
When I don’t respond, she sits up and continues. I mirror her movements and face her. “You’ve always talked about the memories you’ve had connected to your house and while a lot of them are good, a lot of them are not so good too. And I thought you could rent it out or with your dad staying for a while they could move back in or Charlotte could maybe rent it. Since neither of us have any plans of leaving, we should build a house right by the lake where all of this started.”
