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He shifted, sitting up on the couch and looking over his shoulder.
His movements had caught Chi’s eye, and she smiled at him.
“Goodness, you were sound asleep. I went outside and used the outhouse, and you never even stirred.”
“I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.”
“I can imagine. That couch is so lumpy. It’s not the slightest bit comfortable, and it’s not big enough. But your bed is really nice,” she said with a grin. “Thanks for letting me have it. If we’re here another night, I suppose we should switch.”
“No. If you’re here, you get the bed.”
He didn’t want the bed. Didn’t want to think about sleeping in it while she was out on the couch. That would go against everything he believed.
He turned when he heard footsteps and saw that she was bringing him a cup of coffee.
“I know you drink it,” she said, smiling and handing it over to him.
“Thanks.” He wanted to tell her that it’d been a long time since anyone had taken care of him like that. But it was just a cup of coffee and hardly something to get so sentimental about. She already knew he had feelings for her that she didn’t return. He didn’t need to embarrass himself further.
To his surprise, she sat down beside him. That’s when he looked at her a little closer. It looked like she’d been crying.
“We got almost two feet of snow. It was pretty deep when I went out to the outhouse. You’re going to need that coffee.”
“I’m gonna need to chop some more wood too. I’m definitely not getting the bike out with that much snow.”
“I heard we were getting up to eighteen inches, but we got more than what they were calling for.”
“Sorry. I... I thought several times that I should have taken you home instead of bringing you here. I thought you were going to give me a hard time about that.”
“No. I’m glad you did. I needed a place where I could be away and come to grips with the bad decisions I’ve made.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He hated that she was blaming herself. Was that what the tears were about?
Maybe it was better that the tears were about that than that she was crying over that loser of a lawyer who was cheating on his wife.
“I want to make sure I take responsibility for my actions. It’s true that not everything is my fault, but if I take that kind of attitude, then I’m stuck. There’s nothing I can do to change anything because nothing that happened to me is a result of anything I did. But if I look at it like it’s all my fault, then I can see where I can change things. You know what I mean?”
He nodded. That made perfect sense. And he was glad she saw it that way. He supposed blaming everybody else made a person feel better, like it wasn’t their fault, but it was true that it also stuck them in a corner that was impossible to escape because there wasn’t anything they could do.
“It’s all about perspective.”
She looked at her hands in her lap, and he glanced down at his coffee. Steaming and black, just like he liked it. She’d noticed. Of course, he had coffee pretty much every morning at the diner, and sometimes she made it, although not specifically for him. More often it was him making it for her.
“Why were you crying?” He didn’t mean to ask, but the words came out, and now he waited for her answer.
She sat with her head down, her fingers twisting in her lap, her posture tense. Finally she sighed.
“I’ve wasted a lot of my life. That makes me sad. But it also means that I know what I’ve been doing is not what I want to do with the rest of my life. So, I guess I was mourning the waste, and then I buckled down and thought about the things I wanted to do in order to make sure that the rest of my life isn’t the same.”
Did that mean she was still leaving the diner? It was selfish of him to not want her to. He drew in a breath.
“I can admire that. Tell me how I can help you.”
“You bought the building for the diner. You told me that yesterday. What are you planning on doing with it?”
Hope stirred in his chest. Hope that she was moving forward with him, and her speech about turning over a new leaf was about getting rid of the lawyer.
“I bought it for you. For us. For the people of Strawberry Sands. I assumed we were going to be moving the diner and we would set up shop there. But when you said that you didn’t want to do it anymore, that you were leaving, I guess I didn’t even think about it, but I don’t want it if it’s not with you.”
