Page 42 of Hazel and Elijah Find Out: First They F*cked Around

I only had three more weeks until my vacation was over, and I was already missing all the little ways we spent time together—these lunches, cuddling on her couch until she fell asleep, and waking up together each morning.

My leaving had become a conversation we needed to have, but I hadn’t figured out how to bring it up. I kept reminding myself that we were only a few hours apart, but the more I fell for her, the more those hours—the distance—seemed to grow.

I was staring into space when she pressed her thumb between my eyebrows. Blinking, I watched as a satisfied smile spread across her face and she let her hand fall back to her side. She considered me for a moment. “Better. What had your forehead all creased up?”

Well, this is as much opportunity as I’m gonna get.

“I don’t want to leave in three weeks,” I answered.

“Hmm. Yeah, all right, the creases make sense.”

“You’ll allow it?”

“I’ll allow it.”

I ran my hands down the tops of my thighs. “Do we talk about how we continuethiswhen I’m gone?”

She paused for a minute. “I don’t wantthisto end.”

I grinned down at the tabletop. “Good. Me, either.”

“So…”

“I think I could make the drive here three out of four weekends—”

“Oh my god, you’d be willing to come here that often?”

“Could you drive to me on the fourth weekend?” I still couldn’t meet her eye. It felt like I was telling her just how much I liked her without actually saying the words, or knowing if she felt the same.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love, but all the tension in my body released in a single breath.

She tapped her fingertips on the table between us. “It feels really weird to ask, but like, how long do we do that? We’ve only been dating for a couple of weeks, but would you even consider…”

“Moving back here?”

She nodded.

Leaving this place had felt like a new start, as if chains had been released from my body. And I had needed it at the time—someplace new, where I was more than the sum of my past written in scandals. But I had always known an end game with Hazel would mean moving back here. I hadn’t realized considering it wouldn’t feel like slipping those chains back on.

I laced my fingers in hers, running my thumb across the hills and valleys of her knuckles. “If we’re good, and we know what we want from each other, I would move back here.”

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I like this plan. We can FaceTime, and text throughout the day, and I’m gonna miss you a lot, but…”

I waited as she chewed on her lower lip.

She swallowed. “I would be pretty heartbroken if we just stopped.”

I squeezed her fingers, and when she met my eyes I said, “I would too.”

We sat there, grinning at each other, making promises without saying a word.

Ransom’s garage smelled like motor oil and lumber. He and Sterling leaned against the workbench, talking about their grandparents and sipping beers. I’d switched to water a few hours ago, making sure I’d be able to drive to Hazel’s when she got out of work. Sitting on a metal stool, I silently hoped to not get grease on my jeans. I wasn’t the work-toughened kind of man Grand Ridge usually turned out. Most of the guys I grew up with would consider it a waste of time to care about the condition of my clothes, but then again, I’d helped most of them look presentable for the upcoming auction.

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