Page 78 of Off the Trail

But when I get there, the site is empty. I check the clock on my dash—it’s already late afternoon and getting dark. I can see the progress they’ve made since I left on Friday, and I’m proud of them. Over the past couple of weeks, the house has begun to take shape, no longer a collection of empty spaces strung together by boards and nails, but something solid. The windows are partially installed—I can see the rest lined up under covers, ready to go in. The roof is still open to the heavens.

I tilt my head back and look up at the slate gray sky, getting darker by the second. I clearly didn’t play it right with Blaze, but I’m not giving up. This is what I want—clean air in my lungs, hard physical work as long as my body can take it. I don’t even mind the cold that much anymore, now that I have proper gear. I want to spend my days building something I can touch at the end of them.

Maybe I’m selfish, but I want all that and the man I’m in love with, too.

None of us gets what we want all the time, do we?

The sound of tires on the driveway makes me turn around. I’m expecting to see Luis, or maybe Leo coming back for a forgotten thermos, but it’s Blaze’s truck that pulls to a stop next to my humiliatingly clean vehicle. To be very honest, I didn’t buy the Bronco for practicality, but for the image it projects. I look forward to it getting a few scratches and dings the more I actually use it.

He gets out of his truck, leaving Misty in the cab to make nose prints on the driver’s side window. It’s been all of fifteen minutes since we parted in the boathouse, but I’m as glad to see him as if it had been fifteen years.

“They’re done for the day,” he says, stating the obvious.

“Yeah. I’ll catch them tomorrow.”

He shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. “You’re really serious about this?”

I know “this” encompasses more than just the construction job.

“As serious as a two-out walk-off homer.”

He doesn’t smile.

“Look, check the back of my Bronco.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost it.

“Just take a look,” I urge. “It’s open.”

He cups his hand around his eyes so he can peer through the tinted back window. I know what he’ll see. A few cardboard moving boxes, every suitcase I own, some athletic equipment. Clothes and some mementos. Things I’d like to have to get me through a Maine winter. Plus the outerwear I stocked up on before driving up. It was shocking how little I felt like bringing with me from my apartment. It’s only now that I see how empty my life was since leaving the Laurels—maybe even before I left. I substituted the team for a life, and filling in those blank spaces is long overdue.

Blaze looks from the window back to me, his face slack with shock. “You’re really serious about this,” he says again, but this time it’s a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” I say, willing him to believe me, willing him to give me—to give us—a chance.

A dot of white lands on Blaze’s beard, another on his jacket. I look up to find snowflakes falling from the sky like lazy confetti.

“It’s snowing,” I say with a grin. “It’s snowing!”

“You better get used to it,” he says sternly, “if you’re going to be a Mainer now.”

“Can’t I get excited about my first Maine snowfall?”

My heart’s beating fast as he sends me a small, indulgent smile.

“Sure you can. You can get excited about anything you want.”

“Can I get excited about…us?” I really want to know if there’s even going to be an us. He’d seemed so doubtful before, so afraid. But he followed me here. That has to be a good sign.

Please let it be a good sign.

“I didn’t mean those things I said. I was just, well, afraid.”

I cock my head. I’ve never seen Blaze scared of anything since I met him. “Afraid?”

“Afraid to trust that when you said you’d come back, you meant it. It’s easier to be alone when it’s a choice, not something forced upon you.”

He’s talking about his parents, maybe even about Brooke. My stomach clenches thinking about Blaze all alone.