Page 16 of Tee the Season
I close my eyes, but that just makes it worse because now I’m picturing the way Rory looked while I taught him how to play the triangle peg game. The one where you jump over adjacent golf tees, removing them until there’s only one left. When we played over breakfast, he’d been so focused, so intensely competitive over a simple wooden puzzle, I couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re trying to intimidate me,” I’d accused, watching his jaw clench as he concentrated.
“Is it working?” He’d flashed the quick grin that made my stomach flip.
“Not even a little.”
“Liar.” But his eyes had been warm, teasing. “You’re biting your lip. That’s your tell.”
And he’d been right. I had been biting my lip. Because watching him in my space, playing a silly game at my counter, had felt dangerously good. Like something I could get used to.
“Tabitha? You still there?”
“Yeah.” I shake off the memory. “I’m here.”
“Look, I’m not trying to push you into anything,” Leah says, her tone softer now. “I just… You were always the one telling me to take risks. To follow my heart. To go after what I want even when it’s scary.”
My throat tightens. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you and Hays make sense. This—” I gesture uselessly at nothing, “—doesn’t make sense. It never did. That’s why we agreed it was just one night.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
I don’t answer because what am I supposed to say? That my sheets still smell like him? That I woke up early this morning with his arm across my chest and closed my eyes, snuggling in and drifting back to sleep because I’d felt more content than I have in years? That I’m terrified because his extended stay isn’t what either of us signed up for?
“You don’t sound too upset about being snowed in together,” Leah observes, reading my silence with annoying accuracy. “You sound…”
“What?”
“Scared.”
The observation hits too close to home. I stand abruptly, needing to move, and head to the boxes of donated books stacked against the far wall in the reading corner. Work. I can focus on things that need to be done.
“I’m not scared,” I lie, peeling open the top box. “I’m realistic.”
“Here’s the thing though,” Leah cuts in. “You’re not worried about being snowed in with him. You’re worried about what happens when the snow melts.”
My hands freeze on the box flap.
She’s right. And I hate it.
“Look,” Leah continues when I don’t respond. “All I’m saying is…don’t write the ending before you’ve read the whole story. You taught me that, remember? When I was convinced Hays would never want someone like me?”
“That was different—”
“It really wasn’t.” Her voice is gentle but firm. “Just…be open to possibilities. Even the scary ones. Especially the scary ones.”
Overhead, I hear laughter. Rory’s rumble of amusement through the ceiling, muffled, indistinct, but unmistakably his.
What’s he saying to Hays? What are they laughing about?
“I should go,” I tell Leah. “I’ve got a ton of work to catch up on.”
“On a day when the whole town is shut down?”
“The books don’t sort themselves.”
