Page 30 of Pick One
“Well, I mean… I got this maybe job offer. Or, I’m expecting one anyway.” I filled him in on the details of the position. “But it’s in Vermont, at Hannabury, so I already decided it wasn’t important.”
Teagan stared at me. “Not important? How so? You love Vermont. You love Hannabury.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but… I love you more, and you’re here, so...”
Teagan’s eyes got suspiciously wet.
Damn it.
This was exactly what I had been hoping to avoid. “Babe,” I began. “It’s fine, really.”
He sat up on the bed and clasped the top of still-damp head with both hands. “Oh my God, John. This… it’s the good luck you’ve been waiting for! You finally got your dream job. It’s perfect for you. Of course you’re going to take it.” He squirmed and made a shimmying move that I recognized as his good-news wiggle, the one he did when our favorite pizza was on sale or when he’d found out my sister was having a baby. “We’re moving to Vermont!”
“We are?” I asked stupidly. “But what about your career plans?”
“My plans were to find a teaching job and to keep writing with Molly, both of which I can do from our new home in Vermont.”
“Our new home,” I breathed, hardly daring to believe it.
Teagan squeezed my bicep with both hands. “Our new home with room for adog,” he clarified. “I can picture it so clearly. Can’t you?” He proceeded to describe in great detail what our life was going to be like in Vermont, how we’d have to plan for Guncle Groundhog Day and Teagan Is My Favorite Uncle Tuesdays, and just like that I suddenlycouldpicture it. Me and Teagan, together forever. “There will, of course, be sparkling apple juice and those fruit roll-up things that… ah… kids like.”
I thought about the hidden box of fruit roll-ups that were currently behind the fiber cereal in our kitchen cabinet. “Yes. The kids. You’re so thoughtful, baby.”
His eyes shone with excitement and joy—the things that made him the most Teagan of Teagans—the things that made him bright like a shining sun I wanted to revolve around all of my days. “John,” he said, meeting my gaze. “It’s going to be amazing.”
My entire body felt like a zipping parade of tiny sparklers. Itwasgoing to be amazing. But thejobwas not the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me.
I swallowed my fears and reached for his hand.
“T. Pick one: are we going as boyfriends or husbands?”
EPILOGUE
TEAGAN
“You’re not coming, are you?”I accused the second Fern’s voicemail beeped. “Fern, you are fifty-two minutes late. Fifty-two minutes is not ‘Surprise! John and I stopped to get you maple donuts, Teagan!’ Fifty-two minutes is not ‘Oops, we turned left instead of right coming off the highway and ended up at the Little Pippin Hollow Tree Museum.’ Fifty-two minutes is ‘Sorry, Teagan, I have decided to forsake nine years of friendship and abscond with the U-Haul containing your sofa, every single one of your loaf pans, andoh yeah,the love of your lifeto build a life in Canada amongst the moose and Mounties, leaving you all alone in your brand-new house in the wilds of Vermont!’” I closed my eyes and sniffled delicately, feeling incredibly put-upon by this turn of events. “Let me remind you that you don’t even like Celine Dion.”
And I was pretty sure that was a requirement for Canadian immigration.
“But I do.”
“Holy shit!” The deep voice startled me so badly that I took a giant step backward, directly into the shiny metal surface of the vintage refrigerator that had come with the cottage John and I had purchased just two weeks before. “Where did you come from?”
The hot guy in my kitchen doorway looked me up and down, and his lips twitched beneath his thick beard. He wore a bright green T-shirt that did amazing things for his eyes—which was why his husband had picked it out for him—and an old snap-back hat that had seen better days.
He wasnotwearing his Hannabury hoodie, because his husband had stolen it from him. And, I thought as I disconnected my call and shoved my phone in the large pocket, I was not gonna give it back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” John said, his eyes gleaming as he recited the words he’d first said to me more than a year and a half ago. “I’m just here to…” He tilted his head in my direction.
“Check your mail?” I said dryly, folding my arms over my chest.
He grinned. “Nope. I’m the perfect stranger who’s here to help move your sofa.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I fought hard not to laugh.
“Really? You’re sure you’re here for the sofa?” I narrowed my eyes. “Because you wouldn’tbelievehow many cases of mistaken identity involving sofa moving occur each year.”
“Oh, I’d believe it. Feel free to tell me more about it, though. You might not know this about me, since we only just met…” He lowered his voice and stepped closer, getting allllll up in my personal space… which was exactly where I always wanted him. “But gorgeous redheads who quote random statistics at me are my biggest turn-on.”
“How oddly specific,” I exclaimed, not having to fake my excitement as he rucked up my—I mean, technicallyhis, but whatever—sweatshirt and spread his big hands on my bare waist.
