Page 89 of Pick Me
I smiled gently. “I drove the whole way here from Florida, remember? And if I might be moving to the city, I should probably bite the bullet and learn to drive there, right? It was nice of Knox to take me the last couple times, but he, ah…” I swallowed. “He won’t be doing that forever.”
Drew shook his shaggy head. “It’s gonna snow in a couple hours, kiddo. Not the best day to be independent.” He was usually so easygoing that his worried expression gave me pause.
But then I pushed right through it. “Nah. I’ll be nearly to Boston by the time it starts snowing, and I’ll plan to get a hotel down there tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. It’ll be a good thing,” I assured him. “You’ll see.”
Now I just needed to convince myself.
Chapter Sixteen
Knox
I’d started out the day wrapped up in Gage Goodman, and I’d kinda planned to stay that way. We’d spent the night making love with tenderness I’d never experienced before… but it had felt strangely bittersweet, too. Like the air had been clogged with all the things we hadn’t said.
I’d slept well, because I always did with Gage, but the moment I’d woken up, I hadn’t wanted to let him out of my sight.
I felt like there was an invisible countdown timer running faster and faster, no matter how good things seemed between us.
In my case, I knew exactly what I’d been holding back, the words I hadn’t been saying: I was falling for Gage Goodman. Hell, I was pretty sure I’dalreadyfallen, hard and irrevocably, all the way to the bottom of the love pool, despite all the excuses and stern warnings I’d tied around myself like life preservers to keep myself afloat.
But how could I tell him how I felt—how could I burden him with that when he was finally ready to make the leap to having the career he wanted, whether at Rubicon or somewhere else? I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair.
Which was another reason I’d planned to spend every minute with Gage while I could.
“Y’all set over there, Knox?” Jack yelled across the expanse of blue tarp we’d laid across his roof.
I groaned. I could say definitively that I had not planned to spend a single moment of my day twenty feet in the air, on a roof with the structural integrity of a rice cracker, while the wind howled in my ears, but unfortunately for me, a random October snowstorm, Jack’s crumbling yellow Victorian, and my interfering brother had conspired to make other plans.
“This side’s done,” I yelled, securing the last screw in a tarp-wrapped two-by-four to the roof. “You need help over there?”
“Nope. Got it secured under the eave like you told me,” Jack yelled back, his voice caught by a gust of wind. “Just the last crosspiece now?”
“Yup. I’ll grab it.” I hurried down the ladder on my side of the house—at least as much as Icouldhurry while climbing down an aluminum ladder that creaked concerningly every time I shifted my weight.
“I need to lay off the pumpkin bread,” I muttered as I finally reached the ground. I hadn’t been to a gym since leaving Massachusetts.
I grabbed one end of a board I’d cut earlier and dragged it around the house so I could hand it up to Jack. “Got it?”
“Yeah. Fuck, man, you’re a lifesaver.” I heard the whine of the drill three times in succession, and then Jack leaned over the edge of the roof and gave me a thumbs-up. “We done?”
“Far as I can tell, we should be.” I held the ladder so Jack could climb down safely. “The tarp should hold the snow out for a little while, until you can get it fixed.”
Jack sighed in relief when he reached the ground. “Yep. I’ll get to it one of these days. Webb thinks I bit off more than I could chew with this house, but sometimes you’ve gotta take a chance, right? And she’s got a solid foundation and good bones, even if she’s not real—” He gently patted one of the turned spindles that comprised the railing of the wide front porch, and the whole section of railing fell down with a crash. “—sturdy,” he concluded with a shake of his head. “Godfuckingdammit.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” I told him sincerely. “Hey, if you don’t need anything else, I might—”
“Can I get you a cup of coffee to warm you up before you go?” Jack asked. “Left a pot brewing in the kitchen.”
I looked dubiously toward the rear of the house, and Jack laughed. “I promise, the back side of the house is way safer.”
I still hesitated. Gage was at the orchard, possibly still in bed, and I was eager to get back. But then again, Webb and Drew were probably also there, so we wouldn’t get a chance to talk for hours anyway.
“Sure,” I agreed.
Jack led me around the back of the house and through a wooden door to a kitchen that looked an awful lot like the kitchen at home—the same scarred oak floors and white paneled cabinets. The only difference was that Jack’s kitchen was filled with brand-new appliances and looked like it had been remodeled recently.
“The only room in the whole house that’s done,” Jack said proudly, echoing my thoughts. “Hawk did all the painting and sanded the floors while I installed the cabinets and finished the countertops. I still don’t have working heat in my bedroom, but at least I can cook in peace.” He smiled. “Priorities, right?” He nodded toward a solid-looking stool at the counter. “Grab a seat. You take your coffee black?”
“Yeah. Can’t believe you remember.”
