I blinked. “What?”
“Is he going with you?” Macallister repeated.
Oh. My. God. Why had that option never even occurred to me? I’d been so focused on the binary choice between going or not going that I had never considered alternatives. The idea caught fire in my head like a lightning strike in a California summer.
Was that even an option? Could I ask Calloway to come with me?
I glanced toward the back of the restaurant, where Calloway was helping a guest cut her pie into smaller pieces. He was laughing at something the older woman said, the sound low and genuine, and it hit me with the force of a falling tree: I didn’t want to spend a single night in Montana without him.
But he’d already said he wasn’t ready. He’d been honest about his fears, about how fragile the roots of this thing between us still were. Could I really ask him to leave Forestville, to leave the safety he’d only begun to rediscover and follow me into my old world?
Macallister took another bite of pie, watching me with the calm of someone who had learned to let silence do the heavy lifting.
I shook my head, still stunned. “I didn’t think about that being an option.”
He gave a grunt. “Sometimes, we get so used to living life alone, we forget we can ask someone to come with us.”
I turned the idea over in my head again. “I don’t know if he’d say yes.”
“Only one way to find out,” Macallister said, pushing his empty plate forward and leaning back. “And listen, I have the people skills of a rusty nail, so don’t take my word for it, but I’d say he’d be more upset about not being asked than being asked and saying no.”
I looked toward Calloway again. He caught my eye this time, brow furrowed in concern. I must’ve looked as shell-shocked as I felt.
“You okay?” he mouthed.
I nodded. He gave a tentative smile.
Macallister got up. “Thanks for dinner and for the conversation. Good luck.”
Before I could say more than a quick “thank you,” he walked off, boots thunking against the hardwood floor as he put on his leather jacket. He was out the door in seconds, looking like he was glad to escape.
Calloway came over to me, dropping into the seat beside me. “Y-you okay? You l-look pale.”
“I’m good.” I cleared my throat. “Just had a conversation with Macallister.”
Calloway merely lifted an eyebrow.
I took a breath. “I’ve been thinking. About January. About you and me, and what that month might look like.”
He stilled. “Okay.”
“I want you to come with me,” I said. Plain, unvarnished, straight to the point. “To Montana. For the four weeks. You wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We could rent a place, stay together, maybe explore a little. You could write, I could teach, and at night we’d come home to each other.”
His mouth opened, but no words came.
I rushed on. “I know it’s a lot. And soon. And it’s not Forestville. But I don’t want to spend those four weeks fifteen hundred miles away from you. And I don’t want to ask you to wait either. Not when there might be another option.”
He looked down at his hands, fingers twisting in the hem of his sleeve. The air between us grew heavy with the weight of it.
“I—I’ve never b-been to Montana,” he said finally, voice soft.
I waited.
“I don’t know if I c-could…” He shook his head, then looked up at me, eyes wide and vulnerable and very, very brave. “But I w-want to try.”
Inside me, emotions were all tangled up. Relief, awe, and something dangerously close to love all entwined. I reached across the table and took his hand.
“You sure?”
