Page 32

GRACE

I have a balloon in my chest. It’s the only explanation for the way I feel. I left the kitchen for a phone call and came back to a poem about me, left by McCartney, who disappeared before I could read it.

There’s a lump in my throat, too, the size and texture of a sea urchin, his words touching me deeply. I rise from the table to grab a glass of water and gulp it down, swallowing my feelings with it.

Just don’t say goodbye.

I will, though. I have to. I have a life: work, deadlines, friends, and family waiting for me.

I’ve clawed my way to the top and fought harder to outrun the chaos of my childhood.

I was supposed to find peace, quiet, and control.

I haven’t found love yet, but I keep telling myself it’s out there. It has to be.

Even as I think it, my stomach knots. I don’t believe it.

How many more dates with crypto-bros, podcasters, and guys who call themselves “serial entrepreneurs” do I have to survive before I find something real?

I’ve kissed enough frogs to sink an entire damn fleet and all it’s earned me is emptiness and the sinking suspicion that I was never worthy of the fairy tale, anyway.

I shake it off and sink back into the chair, dragging my laptop closer. The glow of the screen steadies me, a tether to the part of me that still knows how to compartmentalize.

Time to be a professional again. Time to finish what I came here to do.

I find the start of the article that poured out of me and read it in a rush of rediscovery.

When I’m done, I stare at the final sentence. My finger hovers over the trackpad, ready to go back and smooth out the flaws, but I don’t. With only a single click to attach it to an email, it’ll be out there, permanent and unchangeable.

But I can’t do it. I’ve always been like this.

The last-minute girl. Give me a deadline, and I’ll dance right on the razor’s edge, chasing the thrill of deciding under pressure.

It’s safer that way. If I wait long enough, the choice of how the story is presented makes itself.

Time will force me to decide what the right message is.

This story feels like it’s still being written.

It isn’t ready for a period, or a blunt The End .

It stopped being just words the second I stepped out of my car to be greeted by eleven of the best men I’ve ever known.

I sit back, twisting the simple silver ring on my thumb. It’s a plain band, like a man’s wedding ring. I bought it for myself, wondering if I’d ever be given a similar ring for my fourth finger. The idea had felt so remote.

In front of me, the screen glows expectantly, patiently.

Nash and Cody told me they want me to stay.

McCartney said the same in his poem. I think it was Dylan who left the beautiful pink cowboy boots outside my door last night, like he was inviting me to step into different shoes and become a part of their world.

If I click my heels together, would it work? Would I be transformed? Would I belong?

When I was between Nash and Cody last night, all my anxieties slipped away.

The memory of their strong hands, soft mouths, and the feeling of being pulled under and anchored at the same time rushes back.

They didn’t touch me like I was a trophy or a conquest. They touched me like I mattered and kept me close all night, the way Jaxon did, the way I believe Levi would have if he wasn’t as messed up and broken as I am.

They treat me like I could belong with them, not to them, and it’s unlike any connection I’ve had before.

It feels easy enough to believe it could be true.

My chest tightens. I’m supposed to write about them, not weave myself into the fabric of what they’re building. I’m supposed to study the ranch, not get tangled in its roots.

The way I’ve been behaving is so far from professional, it’s a dot on the horizon.

But how do you stay detached when Junie asks you to braid her hair?

When Eli’s dark, solemn eyes finally soften with trust?

When these cowboys, these impossible, flawed, infuriating men, start looking at you like you’re the answer to all their hopes and dreams, with an equal mix of relief and fear at the prospect?

My heart lurches painfully. I’m so deep already it’s hard to determine where their world ends and mine begins.

I exhale and stare at the blinking cursor. I should feel relieved. I’ve done what I came here to do. The article is only a few edits from finished. So, why does it feel like the last thing I want to do is hit send?

Maybe because committing to the ending feels like writing a story I haven’t finished living?

I tab away from the draft to a blank page with a new goal in mind. The novel I thought I’d write about a city career woman feels cold now. Lifeless.

Instead, something simpler pulls at me. I type without thinking:

Once upon a time.

I grimace, laughing softly to myself. “Lame,” I mutter. “So lame.”

But I don’t delete it. Not yet .

Because I’ve achieved something that’s always been elusive. I’ve made a start, no matter how ridiculous, on a project for myself, in the hope that this could be the beginning of something new.

I can always erase it later, when I’ve worked out the story’s journey and the ending.

I can figure out that part on paper, but in real life?

If only it were that easy.