Page 28 of Crossroads

TWENTY-SEVEN

“What are you doing out here when we’re having a party inside?” Kelly asks me, standing out on the porch right next to me.

I look out at the fields and the barn, this place that has become home to me. The party she’s talking about is the one to send Emerson on his way first thing tomorrow morning. And it’s just Millie, John, and Emerson in there now, cutting the homemade chocolate cake with party hats on their heads.

Summer is ending, and so are we.

“Can’t do it,” I say, not able to look at her.

Her hand covers mine, where it rests on the railing. “He told me he asked you to go with him.” I hear the question there.

“Just to drop him off.”

“Well, don’t you want to get more time with him?” she asks, her voice kind, though she’s not really prodding me in either direction.

I do. But then what? It’s going to make it that much harder. “Do you ever regret staying in Kensley?” I blurt out, but she doesn’t look all that surprised by my question.

“This place isn’t for everyone.” She looks out over the horizon, her face almost serene, reflecting peace—before she looks back at me. “It’s for me though. It always was. I’d dream with my sister about leaving here, but I’d secretly panic about that thought too. I knew where I belonged.”

“I love it here,” I admit truthfully. “But . . .”

I see the smile flickering in her eyes as she watches me, prodding me to go on, but I can’t seem to say it. “But you love him more,” she answers for me.

It doesn’t surprise me that she knows I’m in love with Emerson. Kelly is just like that, and Millie gets it from her mother. “I don’t want to lose him,” I admit.

“Then go with him, Jasper. This place . . .” She looks around the land with a wide smile.

“It will wait. That’s the beauty of home.

You can always go back. And everyone winds up at the crossroads—where you have to make a choice, but what they don’t tell you,”—her eyes lock on mine, like she’s telling me the biggest secret of life—“is that choice isn’t permanent.

It’s not fixed. It’s fluid, and you can always come back. ”

I look toward the house, hearing Emerson, John, and Millie laugh at something. “What if he doesn’t want that?”

She scoffs lightly, not unkindly, but like I’m a fool nonetheless. “That boy is just as in love with you. He wants you. And he’s also restless, like his mother. I’m not sure he could be happy immediately, settling down in a place like this . . .”

“But you really believe he could someday?” Because how could he? His mother never did. She didn’t even come here for a party to send her only son off to college. And I’m supposed to believe Emerson could be happy here someday?

Her hand reaches out, and she brushes her fingers over my cheek, calming me.

“Emerson was happier here than I’ve ever seen his mother in her entire life.

Yes. I think someday he could be happy here.

And I think you could be happy traveling the world too, as long as you get to come back to your roots. ”

I’m starting to think I could too, but I’m afraid to voice it. “I can’t leave my parents.”

“And who said you’d be leaving them if you go to California? You’ll still be their kid. You aren’t leaving them forever.”

“They need me.” I haven’t talked much to either of them since the day my dad fell, but they’re still my parents. They raised me and loved me. I can’t just abandon them.

“Not for the reasons you think, Jasper. You have to stop taking the world onto your shoulders and start thinking about yourself sometimes.”

A cold bitter feeling sweeps through me. “You have no idea what a selfish son of a bitch I’ve been.”

She drops her hand and softly laughs, shaking her head. “Oh, sweetie, no one on earth could ever describe you that way.”

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that. “If John would have wanted to leave Kensley, would you have followed?”

She doesn’t answer it right away, which sends my nerves skyrocketing. I thought she would follow him anywhere. “It’s hard to imagine John living anywhere else. I think I would have though. I think I would have tried, at least.”

“California though?” I ask dryly. “I’m not much for celebrities.”

She laughs at that and shoves my shoulder playfully when she realizes I’m kidding. “They have more than celebrities in California, you goof.”

I smile, and she pulls me in for a hug. “You can do anything you want to do. Just make sure it’s what you want. Go with him. If anything, it’ll be good for you to have a little break from working so much.”

“And what about the farm?”

“We’ll manage,” she says instantly.

Could I do that? What if something goes wrong with Dad and I’m not here? What if Kelly and John have a crisis out on the farm?

I don’t like the idea of not being here, but I hate the idea of not trying. Of not at least giving the man I love a proper goodbye, even if it makes me ache to think about saying goodbye to him.

We go inside and finish celebrating, me with a fake smile and Emerson’s smile mostly matching mine. And when we turn in for the night in my loft, I strip him down and make love to him.

I don’t fuck him. I take my time. I tease him up to the edge of coming and then start all over again until we’re both too close to deny our pleasure, and we come at nearly the same time.

And then, I hold him to me, wrapped around his body, my front to his back. I silently plead with him not to go. I have responsibilities here. I have a whole life and a plan for that life, but none of it makes sense anymore.

None of it feels right when I think about it without him.

How did he do this to me? I was fine with life. Just drifting through, maybe, but I was doing just fine. And then he comes in and wrecks it. He scrambled it all up and changed everything.

In the best possible way that I never saw coming.

“I want to drive with you to California,” I whisper into his ear. “I can’t stay.” I hold him tighter, and his hands run over my forearm that’s resting over his stomach. “But I want to see your new home.”

“It’s not home, Jasper.” He rolls, staying in my hold, but facing me now. “It won’t be home without you.”

My throat is tight with emotion. “I can’t leave them,” I say, cursing myself because I feel guilt.

I want to, if I’m being truthful. I could handle living in a crowded city probably near a loud college campus in a state I’ve never really had any desire to go to.

I could do it easily for him. But I can’t leave them.

“I know,” he says, and the truth is I think he does know. He’s not trying to push me into it. He leans forward and steals a sweet kiss. “I just want as much of you as I can get.”

“You have me.” I kiss him hard. “You have all of me. You have to know that.”

He nods and kisses me again, sweeter and softer than I kissed him. Telling me it’s okay.

Telling me that he doesn’t blame me for my choice.

But I blame me.

Why does life have to be so fucking hard sometimes? The choice feels impossible. But he’s not making me choose.

He understands, even when I don’t.