Page 113 of Take Me Home

“Did you want coffee? Or tea?”

“I’m looking for Ash.” At the girl’s blank stare, Hazel prompted, “Tall guy who works here?”

“Oh, right. I don’t think he works here anymore, though.”

“He doesn’t work here anymore?”

“I think?”

“He quit?”

“I’m not sure. But he’s not on the schedule.”

“Like, in the last week, he just stopped working here?”

Jade pressed her lips together and nodded as if she thought ceasing verbal replies might break this unproductive loop.

Hazel fumbled an abrupt goodbye and speed-walked aroundthe corner of the building to the other entrance, taking the staircase two steps at a time. She knocked on Ash’s closed door and called his name. Her voice echoed in the tight space. She knocked again then tried the knob. Locked. But when she jostled it, the door cracked open.

And inside, she saw…nothing. The entire apartment was empty. No bed. No coffee table. The models that had once lined the living room wall were gone.

She deflated against the doorjamb, stomach churning. If his Christmas Day text message felt abrupt and final, then this was an atom bomb. He’d moved out. He’d quit his job. He’d left the building altogether in one week.Just like we agreed, she realized. He’d given her exactly what she’d said she wanted.

She walked back to the café, unsure what to do. She sat in the green chair, everything just as it had always been, except nothing felt right. Ash was supposed to be smirking at her from the counter or dropping into the wobbly chair across from her and messing with her stacks of papers. Even the chair itself, which used to inspire feelings of greatness, of being exactly where she should be, doing exactly what she was meant to do, felt wrong.

When the tears threatened to spill, she gathered herself up and headed for the door.

And that was when she saw it: an envelope with her name on it in familiar, assertive black pen. She ripped it open to find an address written on the inside and a single line:Whenever you’re ready.

—

Her heart was a hummingbird in her chest when she arrived at a small apartment complex near the edge of town and willed her shaky legs up a metal staircase. She knocked before she couldchicken out. And when she heard the slide of a lock, she mentally reached for her speech, only to realize she’d lost it entirely.

Ash filled the doorway in a navy T-shirt and gray sweats, his hair mussed on one side, stubble almost thick enough to call it a beard. His eyebrows arched in surprise, but otherwise he was cautious, guarded, his grip tight on the edge of the door. “Haze.”

“Hi.” She was panting from running up the steps, and the tightness in her chest only ratcheted up her panic at forgetting what she’d meant to say. There’d been a checklist, one point setting up the next. But at the sight of him, all she could think was,Please.

“You moved,” she blurted. “And you quit the café.”

Ash looked at his hand on the door, the other rising to scratch his neck. She couldn’t read him.

“Because of me? Because of our deal?”

“Yes and no. That’s hard to answer.” His eyebrows drew together in debate as he started to say more but stopped. He fought a smile, and her heart flipped at that tiny, lifted corner. “Um, what does this mean? Why’d you come?”

She blinked. Even though she held his message in her hand—his handwriting, her name—she feared she’d somehow misunderstood or made the whole thing up in desperation. “Sorry,” gusted out of her.

“No. Just—”

A rush of cold wind blew her hair off her neck, and her teeth chattered. She hugged herself, turned from the wind, from him.

He stepped out onto the landing in his socks, halving their distance, and warmth enveloped her wrist as he circled it with his hand. His inhale made a scraping sound like the wind through the leafless trees around the parking lot below. “It’s cold. Come inside?”

His apartment was sparsely furnished with stuff from hisold place. He gestured for her to sit on the futon, but he remained standing by the door. If she’d known he wasn’t going to sit with her, she would have stayed on her feet. “I came to—”

Something red underneath the coffee table caught her eye. Distracted, she bent to grab it, assuming it was a throw blanket that had fallen to the floor. But loose yarn trailed from one end. It wasn’t a blanket. It was much narrower and still in progress. Knitting needles fell to her feet with a faint clicking sound. “What is this?”

He held her questioning gaze for so long, she wondered if he’d even heard her. But finally, he dragged a hand down his face. “Something I’ve been doing to pass the time.”

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