“Then why are you going?”
It’s a question I’ve asked myself a hundred times this week alone. “I think…there are parts of the job I would like. Aspects I could grow to love, even. My manager is very sweet, and I’d have more control over my own schedule. I’d be able to set betterboundaries.” I prop my chin in my hand. “I just feel like I’ve got to see it again. Like I’ve got to stand in the middle of Manhattan and look up at all the skyscrapers and ask myself if I’m really ready toleave all of it behind.”
Noah’s expression is understanding as he looks at me. Firelight ripples across his chin and flickers in his eyes. “Then I think you should go.”
I frown. “That’s not the advice I thought you would give.”
“Why not?”
Maybe it’s the mead. Maybe it’s the fact that he never dodges any of my questions that makes me brave. “Maybe I want you to tell me that you don’t want me to go. That I should stay.”
Gently, he cups my hand in his and leans forward to kiss the inside of my wrist. “If you decide to stay, Sadie,” he says quietly, “it should be because you explored every option and found the one that’s best for you. I would never hold you back from that. If you decide to stay in Heller, wouldn’t it mean so much more if you made that choice after seeing everything this job has to offer? It’ll make the decision harder, sure, but at least you’ll make it knowing you left no stone unturned.”
“But what if it’s the wrong decision?” My throat feels thick. “What if I love the job, but I lose you guys?”What if I lose you?“Or what if I stay, and the art doesn’t work out? Or, worse, I start to resent it? What if I stay, and you…don’t?”
Noah squeezes my hand. “Then we just make the next right decision,” he murmurs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
For a few heartbeats, all I can hear are the crickets and the crackling of the fire and, very far off, the hush of water lapping at the stones below. It’s the type of advice that rings with obvious truth, despite how difficult it is to actually follow. I stand up suddenly, dig through our supplies, and bring back the s’mores ingredients. This time, it’s my choice to change the subject.
“Have you been to New York before?”
“There are some places in the Adirondacks I want to visit…but no, I haven’t been to the city itself yet,” he says with a laugh. “Believe it or not, though, I used to live in downtown Chicago. For a few years, actually. That’s New York–ish, isn’t it?”
“Really?” I turn to him, curious. “I figured you were incapable of living anywhere more than half a mile from a trail.”
“You’d think, right?” He pokes a stick into the fire. “I mean, obviously I bounced off pretty hard from it. It was after that when I bought the van and really started traveling.”
“What were you doing in Chicago?”
“I’m from Illinois, actually. But I moved into the city when…” He pauses and looks at me seriously. “Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“I was an accountant.”
It’s too much. At the thought of him with his shirt buttoned to his chin, a tie wrung around his neck, beard neatly trimmed and hair slicked back into a professional bun—well, I don’t laugh, but my grin is impossible to hide. “It’s hard to imagine you as a fancy businessman, Noah.”
“I’ll save you the trouble, then.” He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through old pictures. I catch flashes of selfies at Alchemist, shots of Noah and a group of strangers posing at the summit of some mountain, pictures of beer and random dogs on trails. Finally he taps one of the photos to enlarge it on the screen and passes his phone over.
It’s a professional headshot of a serious man in a white button-up shirt.
“Is this your dad?”
“You’re so funny, Sadie. Have I ever told you?” His tone drips with endearing sarcasm.
I barely recognize the Noah in this photo. For one, he’s clean-shaven; I bet I could cut myself on the lines of his long, angular jaw. His red hair is trimmed short on the sides, and though it’slonger on top, it’s too short to show off any of his natural curls. He’s thinner than he is now, too. Without any of the masculine raggedness of his long hair and beard, he almost looks pretty. Elegant. His features remind me of Loren, smooth and elven, but his unsmiling expression is nothing like Noah. The Noah I know is always smiling.
“I liked my imagination better,” I admit.
He presses his lips to my temple. “And what were you imagining, hm?”
“I was trying to remember whether I remembered how to undo the knot of a tie.”
“Mm.” He slides his hand up the side of my ribs, his thumb skimming the underside of my breast through my shirt. “It’s easy. I could show you.”
But I’m not ready to be distracted yet. “Why did you leave?”
“Truthfully, I liked the work fine. Accounting’s like a puzzle if you look at it the right way. Even now I still do some work for Dan. But the culture I was part of in Chicago wasn’t much fun. And I got tired of how cold it was.”
