Page 53 of The Strawberry Field
“Morning.” My voice is softer than I intend, like I’m afraid to break the spell.
He reaches over and brushes his fingers through my hair. “You okay?”
I nod. “Better than okay.”
Something in his face eases, like he’s been waiting a long time to hear that. He leans over, kisses me slow, unhurried, as if we have all the time in the world.
We linger there, wrapped in the kind of silence that doesn’t need filling. The lake outside is impossibly still, a mirror catching the early light.
“Coffee?” he finally asks.
“Only if you’re making it,” I tease.
He laughs, kisses my forehead, and disappears into the kitchen. I lie there, listening to the quiet sounds of a morning I didn’t think I’d ever want to see. The kettle’s whistle, Hattie’s nails clicking across the hardwood, the low hum of a song playing from Jake’s phone.
When he returns, he sets a mug on my nightstand and slides back in beside me. We sip, shoulders brushing. The coffee is warm, steadying. And for the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself imagine tomorrow.
The quiet stretches, comfortable but edged with something tentative. Finally, Jake says, “Last night…” He stops, then shakes his head. “I don’t even know what to call it.”
“Perfect,” I offer, though my chest tightens with the weight of what comes next.
He looks at me, steady, serious. “I don’t want to mess this up, Sawyer. I don’t want to move too fast and scare you off.”
I set my cup down, curl my knees up under me. “You’re not the only one who’s scared. I don’t even know what I’m capable of… what I can promise.”
His hand finds mine, thumb moving slow across my skin. “I’m not asking for promises. Just… let’s see where it goes. One step at a time.”
The simplicity of it, the patience in his voice, steadies something in me I didn’t realize was shaking.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He leans over, presses his lips to my temple. We sit like that for a long time, two people treading carefully over the fragile bridge between what was and what might be.
Chapter Twenty–Two
Jake
AFTER SAWYER LEAVES, the house feels strangely quiet. Hattie pads after her, watching through the screen door until her Jeep disappears up the drive. Then she trots back to me, tail wagging, as if to say she knows something important has shifted.
I stand there a moment, taking it in, the morning light on the lake, the faint scent of coffee still in the air. It’s ridiculous, maybe, how different everything feels this morning. Like the ground has tilted and, somehow, steadied at the same time.
I catch myself smiling. Smiling in a way I haven’t in longer than I care to admit.
How unpredictable life is. I’d stopped believing it could surprise me with anything good. And then Sawyer shows up again, out of nowhere, like the missing piece I didn’t know I was still waiting for.
It’s hard to believe she’s in my life again, after all the years we lost. Harder still to believe that last night happened, that she chose to stay. That she slept in my arms through the night.
I want to hold on to that, to believe in it, in her, in us.
But a voice at the back of my mind whispers caution. The world doesn’t make promises. And I’ve seen how fast it can all be taken away.
Still, I can’t shake the thought that maybe this, Sawyer, me, the way we fit together again, isn’t an accident. Maybe it’s a second chance I never expected to get.
Is it wrong to want to let go of the fear? To stop questioning and just believe in what we’ve found?
I want to. I really want to.
I grab my keys, whistle for Hattie, and head out to the truck. The morning air smells of damp earth and cut grass. We made a date for the hardware store, a normal kind of Saturday I never imagined having with her.
