Page 25 of Truly

I take a slice, too. “Fuck if I know. Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

I try not to watch her lips wrap around the edge of the crust. “Montana, maybe.”

“You can go anywhere in the world, and you pick Montana?” She laughs. “The world is bigger than the continental US, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty damn happy here.”

“You don’t want to see the world?”

“Sure. Peru would be cool. Egypt. Jordan. Iceland,” I say, rattling off a few places that might interest me. “But Peachwood Falls has all I need.”

She holds my gaze.Except you.It hasn’t had you for the past six years … and that isn’t going to change.

And it’s better that way. At least for me.

I clear my throat and look away. “You know I love it here. I love being with my family. I love living in Poppy’s house and working in the business he started when he was my age. Every morning, I wake up and have coffee and look across the fields and feel really lucky. Very … I don’t know. Rooted, maybe. Grounded.” I look at her. “This is my home, and I don’t really need to travel the world to feel complete. I’d rather have a Sunday dinner with my family than a fancy steak in some restaurant half a world away.”

“I miss that.”

“What?”

She swallows a bite of her pizza. “I miss that feeling of home. I have five houses across the world. There are two in Nashville—one I just got for an investment. I shared one in Los Angeles with Tom, so I don’t know what will happen with that. None of my stuff is really there, so I don’t actually care all that much. I have one in New York and one in London.”

“Wow.”

“But there’s not one of them that feels likehome, you know?”

“I think it’s more about the people than the location.”

She puts her pizza back in the box and stretches out across my bed. Her eyelids start to get heavy.

“That’s probably the problem,” she says. “I don’t have anyone at any of those places who really cares about me.”

My heart pulls so tight I wince. “I doubt that’s true.”

“It’s true.” Her eyes close, and her body relaxes into the blankets. “I pay everyone to care. Everyone but Stephanie. But she has her own life.”

I sit still and watch her fall asleep. Her breathing evens out. Her lips purse together like they always did. I used to tease her about it and say she was waiting for a kiss even in her sleep. She didn’t think I was funny.

I don’t think it’s anything to laugh about tonight, either.

I close the pizza box and move it to the end of the bed. Then I grab the blanket I covered her with earlier and drape it over her body.

For half a second, I consider climbing into bed with her. I ache to curl up behind her and pull her close. To feel her in my arms. To be reminded of what it’s like with her against me.

But then reality hits, and I take the pizza box, turn off the light, and leave her to sleep. This time with Laina isn’t about connecting.

It might be our chance to properly say goodbye.

And that’s a motherfucker.

CHAPTER 8

Laina

Shoes.I still don’t have shoes.