Page 54 of Code Mages & Empty Pages
I can’t stay.
The urge to leave was instant and overwhelming. I locked up fast, hurried to the car, and went straight back home.
The realisation hit me somewhere on the drive.
I called Luc’s house ‘home’. I don’t want to live at the cottage anymore.
Even if I couldn’t stay with Luc, I wasn’t going back. That house belonged to the old Dawn, not the new me.
When I got home, I dropped my bags and scooped Ruffles up. I needed to hold onto him for a while. He purred and licked a tear off my cheek, making me giggle.
“I need to tell your daddy, don’t I?” He purred louder, nuzzling his face under my chin. “We’ll be brave, Ruffles. Roe and Ruff. We’ll be okay.” His fur tickled my nose, and I couldn’t help but laugh, just a little.
I barely heard from Luc all day.
He sent a few photos from Carranbrae of the lighthouse and a gorgeous beach and an interesting-looking second-hand bookshop called Nine Lives Books. I wanted to go there with him to explore the town and see all the places he had discovered.
He’d met with Kat and Elora, who’d be working on the app with Taran and Maeve.
Luc sent another message from Carranbrae’s train station, shortly before he boarded the train back.
Luc: I’ll be back home soon
Luc: I hope you and Ruffles are okay. I can’t wait to see you
My gut told me something had shifted between us.
Maybe I was just trying to convince myself that his offer to help me move was for Desmond’s sake, so he wouldn’t see how much it stung both of us that the day for me to move out had come.
“I’m sure he wants me to stay,” I told Ruffles as I cut onions, carrots, and pumpkin into cubes. It was too early in the year for pumpkin curry, but I didn’t care.
Being with Luc had made me more unapologetic about my own needs. If I craved a comfort food, I’d have it. Today, I wanted pumpkin curry. It would taste perfect by the time he got home.
“Whatever happens, Ruffles, we still have each other, okay?” I was really talking to myself.
It was almost half past eight when I finally heard Luc’s car pull up outside the cottage.
“There we go, Ruffles,” I murmured, heart thumping, wiping my hands on a tea towel and heading for the door.
“Hey, Roe,” Luc greeted me. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him. He toed off his sneakers and scratched Ruffles under the chin for a moment before he came over to me. I sank into his embrace with a lump the size of an orange stuck in my throat.
How do I tell him?
“I missed you two,” he muttered and kissed my brow. “I got you something in Carranbrae, too. The town is so charming. There’s a lighthouse with a pretty beach and a cute tea house. We should—” Luc broke off and let go of me. He pulled a small gift out of his coat pocket. It was wrapped in brown paper that hadbeen stamped with seashells and lighthouses and an address in Carranbrae. “I also got you some tea but that’s in my backpack.”
“Thanks,” I croaked. I was glad that unwrapping the present gave my hands something to do. He’d bought me a woven bracelet made from seagrass. “Oh, wow, Luc. I love it.”
“I’m glad you do.”
Chapter 20
Luc
The house smelled of curry and Dawn’s honey-and-almond curl cream.
It smells like home.
She turned the bracelet over in her hands with a smile on her face, then placed it around her wrist.
