Page 138 of Return To You

She continues, “People are over the digital stuff. They want to touch the paper, smell it… ya know.”

“Krinkle it.”

“Exactly, krinkle it.” She swats the paperback from my hands and goes to put it back in the drawer.

The model is bare chested, leaning on the door jamb, looking at the camera with sex on his mind. I frown. “This the guy with jeans that hug him?”

“I guess so.” Her eyes don’t stop to look at his abs or the V revealed by jeans that are clearly lacking in the hugging department, seeing as they’re about to fall off him. She closes the drawer and turns her back to me, lifting her hair off her neck. “Can you tie this up please?”

I fumble with the ribbons holding her summer dress, a part of my brain registering that this dress needs to stay up all day but also come off real quick tonight. “You think of me when you read that book?” I’m not sure how I feel about that, and I don’t say this in a way that suggests I don’t approve. I’m just… at a loss. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? A neutral thing? An I-don’t-give-a-fuck thing? Probably the latter. The truth is, I have to admit, I feel fucking jealous of this paper guy because he gets to stay next to Grace while I’m gone.

Fucking shit. I’m pathetic.

“Yeah, I do think of you.” Dress tied up, she goes to her closet.

Okay. Shoulda kept my mouth shut. I don’t want to hear how she makes up for my absence.

Or maybe I need to grow a pair and listen—understand—what her pain is like because of me.

She comes back with a hamper. “I think about how lucky I am.” Stopping in her tracks, her eyes darken as they set on me. “That I have my own happy ever after now. That I won’t ever be without you again.”

Emotion floods me and I pull her against me. She lifts her face. “What kind of books do you read?” she asks me.

“Second World War. Spy books. That kinda stuff.”

She makes a little sound in the back of her throat, boops me, then bends over to the floor. I catch her wrist in my hand. “What are you doing?”

“Just… picking stuff up,” she says, dropping my dirty sock in the hamper.

Fuck. I’m a pig. But no way is Grace picking my dirty socks off the floor. I take the hamper from her and go about picking up the rest of my clothes. I am missing one sock, though.

“I cleared some space for you.” She opens the closet door wide again to reveal half the shelves and rods empty now, her clothes packed tight on the other side. Before I can say anything, she’s opening up drawers that are all empty.

Even with all my stuff that’s somewhere in transit until I know where I’ll end up, I don’t own one-tenth of the clothes needed to fill all this. But that’s not why my vision is getting blurry.

“I’ll go make coffee while you settle in,” she says, fleeing the bedroom like maybe she did something wrong.

I clear my throat, set the hamper in the closet, unpack my duffel bag. I only have a couple of days here before I leave. I don’t need to unpack. But I want to.

She’s talking nervously to Damian, singing some other country song that just about rips my heart out. Something about tomorrow maybe never coming.

Fuck this shit.

I’ll find the other sock later. I need us to be happy for the short time I’m here. “Babe,” I say as I come into the kitchen where she’s fighting with the coffee machine. “Lemme handle this.”

She seems happy to let me take over, and then her sad face lights up. “Oooh! I have something for you.” She dashes away, then returns holding a small packet all wrapped up with curly ribbons and bows.

“Let’s go outside first,” she says as she pours cream and maple syrup in two cups, then fills us up with coffee.

I start tearing the gift open once I’m settled on the outdoor sofa. “I like this little couch, babe. Perfect size for the two of us.”

She wiggles against me, careful not to spill any coffee. “I know. That’s why I got it.” She blows on her coffee and slurps her first sip. “You like it?” she says, smiling huge at the gift sitting on my lap.

I unwrap it clumsily, letting it fall on my lap. It’s a mumble jumble of little things hooked together.

The outline of the state of Vermont.

A heart.

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