Page 94 of Pick Me
“Are a giant romanticthing? No, Edwin Knox,” Webb said, lifting an eyebrow. “Drew filled me in on his suspicions this morning after you left for Jack’s, which was necessary because mybrotherhad been trying to keep it a secret.”
I winced. “I know. That’s my fault. And Gage leaving is my fault, too, because I…” I imagined Gage telling me to be honest. To trust Webb to handle it. “I was planning on going back to Boston at the end of the year.”
Webb rolled his eyes. “Yeah, now that Ididknow.”
“Wait.” I narrowed my eyes. “You knew? But…”
“Dude, yes. We all did.”
“Yep.” Hawk nodded. “Even Emma. Maybe even Aiden.”
Webb rolled his eyes. “You’ve had one foot out the door the whole time you’ve been here. Why do you think I’ve been pushing you to do Norm Avery’s financial planning and marry my best friend? God, why do you think Drew keeps finding receipts from the Great Depression and putting them in boxes for you to sort? We knew you were thinking to leave, and we wanted to give you a reason to stay. If going back to Boston is what’ll truly make you happy andhealthy—” He touched his temple. “—then go. Nobody wants to hold you back, Knox. But if there’s a part of you that wants to come back—if there’s a part of you that would like to be here full-time for real—we wanted you to know that we want that. You have a place here waiting for you, and we miss you when you’re gone.” He clapped my shoulder. “Imiss you.”
Wow. I swallowed. “I don’t know what to say. I…”
“Don’t say a damn thing,” Webb scoffed. “Christ. I’ve had all the talking I can take until after Thanksgiving at least. Go get your man and talk tohim. He probably wants to hear it.”
“And bring him home,” Hawk said softly.
I nodded confidently. “I will.”
But as I pulled back down the driveway through the heavy snow and headed for the highway a little faster than I should have, I directed a glance at the roof of the truck.
“Quick reminder, Lord, that I do not live in Grey’s Anatomy-land, or Downton Abbey-land. I do not require a car accident to add drama to my day, because I’m plenty fucking good at that all by myself. Though if you were looking for an opportunity to practice the walk-on-water shit, maybe you could give me a sign that’ll help me find the man I love, preferably before there’s six inches of snow on the ground?”
But then my phone let out a strange chime, and I remembered in a flash that I didn’t need to follow a sign from above… because Gage had already given me a signal I could follow.
Chapter Seventeen
Gage
In retrospect, I was beginning to believe my trip to Boston had been a miscalculation.
In my defense, I blamed the lumberjacks.
First, there’d been Webb, giving me minute-by-minute weather projections while I got my suit out of the closet in the barn-apartment and threw my toiletries in a bag. It was almost like he’d beentryingto get in my way as much as possible, ensuring that a ten-minute packing sesh turned into a thirty-minute dance marathon as we stumbled around each other.
Then Hawk had come home from the morning rush at the restaurant, and he’dcome upstairs to “help” also, which had mostly involved him begging me in his sweet, bewildered voice to repeat every detail of the conversation I’d had with Jason—twice—but I couldn’t get cranky because no decent human could get cranky with Hawk.
Then they’d both insisted that I say goodbye to Drew, since otherwise he might be so upset I’d forgotten him that he’d trip over his boot and break his other ankle… which was extremely unlikely, of course, but once the idea was in my head, I’d decided it would probably be best to err on the side of caution.
But then Drew, who was a lumberjack, too, albeit of the older, devil’s-lettuce-loving variety, had been worried about what Aiden would think if I left without saying goodbye. He’d insisted that I take a minute to leave the boy a farewell letter—which had seemed really melodramatic, considering I wasn’t going off to war and would, in fact, be back by Sunday at the latest—so I’d compromised by texting Aiden through the Pond App and prepared to leave.
Except then Marco had come rushing in, gasping for air like he’d run all the way over from his house next door, and breathlessly begged me to teach him how to use the Pond App just in case “anyone in the family” went missing while I was gone. That was such a horrifying thought, I hadn’t been able to leave without giving him a basic rundown on how the app worked and how everyone in the family with the app installed could see where anyone else in the family was, as long as they had their privacy settings configured right.
Webb had insisted I take a coffee in a to-go cup to keep me awake—despite it being eleven in the morning and me being perfectly well rested—and had brewed me a fresh pot.
But then Drew had implored me to wait for his pumpkin bread—“with the chocolate chips you suggested, Gage!”—to come out of the oven so I could have a snack for the road to go with my coffee… which, admittedly, hadn’t been a hard sell, since it had been a minute since breakfast and I’d been quite peckish.
Then Hawk suggested I bring a blanket in the car, just in case I got stranded—because people in New England packed emergency shit in their cars like that in winter—so I’d waited while he fetched a blanket from his own room, which had taken about as long as if he’d knitted it for me himself.
But when Marco had asked if I needed to pee before I left because “you never know when the urge might hit you while you’re on the road,” I’d hadenough.
No more snacks, no more blankies, no more final pees. I’d gotten in the car and left…
Well. Sort of.
I mean, when Drew had limped out onto the porch after me and begged me to take a loaf of the pumpkin bread to Betty Ann Wolff, the head of the Little Pippin Hookers on my way through town—"because she’d kill herself trying to come and fetch it in this snow, Gage!”—I might have agreed.
