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to belch all the words to ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It.’ I can’t shake the feeling that it would be a horrible idea to let him run

the country.”

“Yeah, I get it.” I laughed and pulled him back to me. “We just know too much.”

***

I had walked from my house to Cole and Laila’s home, and I hadn’t felt very nostalgic at all about the walk itself on my way there.

Their place had once been Cole’s family’s house, where he grew up with his mom and grandparents, and growing up, his house and mine had been the closest to each other of anyone’s.

Not that any of us lived very far apart in Adelaide Springs, of course, but Cole’s house was only about four blocks away.

And it made perfect sense that the nostalgia didn’t kick in until the walk home.

The walk home was where the memories had always been made.

Cole would never allow Laila, Brynn, and me to walk or ride our bikes home alone, and because of the parts of town in which

we all lived, Wes had always been tasked with being the escort of the other two girls. Cole and I, meanwhile, had many of

our greatest conversations as we walked the four blocks between our houses.

The sun was finally all the way up over the mountains, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was shaping up to be one of

those breathtakingly beautiful Colorado January days in which the tingling of your skin and the steam in front of your face

each time you breathed tried to convince you it was winter, but the blue skies and blinding sun made it nearly impossible

to believe. Suddenly I didn’t feel like just walking back home. I could go to the Bean Franklin and test out my new “Don’t

live life alone” initiative, but that didn’t seem quite right either. Not right then. The day was too perfect to be spent

inside.

Halfway between our four blocks, I turned down Elm and began heading toward my once-and-again favorite spot in town. And then,

before I even knew what was happening, I felt myself lowering into a runner’s stance, waiting for the starting pistol to give

me permission to bolt. Permission came in the form of a brisk wind at my back.

I hadn’t run in a very long time, and certainly not at high elevation, and for a moment there, as I felt the burn in my lungs

and the tightness in my neck, I couldn’t help but think about what a stupid, undignified way I had chosen to die. But then

the tightness dissipated, and the burn spread throughout my entire body in a way that actually spurred me on rather than held

me back.

“What shoes am I even wearing?” My voice bounced as I shouted into the morning air with a laugh.

I really couldn’t remember if I was wearing proper shoes or not—my feet were as unaccustomed to running in sneakers as they were in orthopedic kitten-heel mules at this point, so I really had no idea—but I instinctively knew not to look down at my feet for fear that I would tumble head over tail and make my impending death even more humiliating.

It was only a hundred yards. A hundred and fifty at most. But as I left the street and walked into the meadow that in just

a couple of months would be alive with green grass and every shade of wildflower but which for now was still buried beneath

a couple of feet of snow, I had to bend over, my hands just above my knees, to catch my breath.

“Don’t worry, it’s just the elevation. It gets everybody at first. You’ll adapt.”

I kept heaving as I raised my head and looked toward his voice, off to the left, farther into the meadow.

Well, that wasn’t going to help me catch my breath—seeing Wes walking toward me in perfectly layered GQ casualness (white T-shirt under a V-neck sweater under a denim jacket under a slightly bulkier corduroy jacket, collars expertly

popped), designer work boots clearly manufactured to help you believe the wearer just came from a construction site (where

he served as the region’s best-dressed foreman), aviator sunglasses, and blue jeans that, on him, could have served as a tutorial

for fashion. (“See, men? That’s how you wear a pair of jeans.”) He also clearly hadn’t shaved since I last saw him, which turned me into a bundle of indecision.

Should I find a paper bag to breathe into or just spend my final moments creating a “Look how hot this guy is!” social-media

post that could also serve as my autopsy report? (“Cause of death: well, just look at him.”)

“Your perfect washboard abs intimidate me,” I panted, still just because of the running, I’m almost convinced. “I, meanwhile, just ran the length of a football field and raised my heart rate enough for my Apple Watch to ask

if it should call 911.”

I wish I had been kidding.

“I’ll let myself go if it will make you feel better.”

I finally managed to stand upright and face him. “Now, now, let’s not be hasty. This is clearly a me problem.”

He chuckled and offered me one of the two disposable coffee cups in his hands. “Can your heart take a boost of caffeine?”

Let’s see... I’d had two cups at home, one cup with Cole... “Sure. Thanks.” I took the cup and wrapped my hands around it. “If my dad’s heart attack taught me anything, it’s that I only have thirty-something good years left before I need to start taking better care of myself.”

Wes raised his cup in toast formation. “Happy Sober-versary.”

I smiled and clinked my biodegradable cardboard against his. “Thank you very much.”

He took a sip before asking, “So what are you doing out here?”

“What am I doing out here? What are you doing here? The South Carolina primary is in six days. Shouldn’t you be in South Carolina? As of this morning they’re saying

you’re only up four points in South Carolina. I know it’s only nine electoral votes, but you really don’t want to lose South

Carolina.”

An amused grin spread across his lips. “Please, Adelaide. Say ‘South Carolina’ one more time. For me.”

“Okay, but I’m serious, Wes. If you’re going to—”

“Hey, can we sit?” he asked, motioning back to the direction from which he had come.

I nodded. “Sure. If we can find a not-buried-in-snow seat, that is.”

“I know a place.”

He led me to the same log I had sat on to feel close to Joel a few days prior. The same log where Joel had heard every depressing

detail of my Wes Hobbes sob story years before that. And the log where Wes had asked me to marry him twenty-three years ago,

when life was nothing but possibility and everything else to come was still so unimaginable. It had already been cleared of

snow, and when I sat, I could feel some still-present warmth spread through my legs.

“How long have you been out here?”

He sat beside me and sighed. “Awhile. It was just going to be a quick moment to think before I took you your coffee, but I

got caught up watching the sunrise.” He took another sip. “Sorry about the temperature of the coffee, by the way.”

I raised the cup to my lips and felt the coldness before I tasted anything. “So tell me. What’s all this thinking been about?” I took a deep breath and faced him. “If you’ve changed your mind, you can tell me.”

That, of course, had been the uneasiness at the center of my restless night. It was so easy, I knew, to get caught up in a

magical moment. When reality was put on hold and emotions were running high, you could envision whatever sort of future you

wanted. Why couldn’t he be president and still commute to Adelaide Springs a couple of weekends each month like it was Camp David or something?

Thanks to some Brynn and Sebastian efforts, we had really great internet speeds. He could conference in to the situation room

in the morning, give a speech to the Teamsters at lunch, sit down for a strategic planning session with the joint chiefs midafternoon,

and take me to dinner at Milo’s before a quick late-night check-in with the prime minister of Canada.

Easy.

But it wasn’t difficult to imagine that the bubble had been burst for him in his first moments on the plane leaving Denver.

Philip Brewster would have already had the schedule prepared, and it was no doubt unforgiving and unrelenting. In addition

to quickly approaching primaries, he had several days of lost time to make up for. Add to that my 2:00 a.m. realization that

Brewster was probably now hell-bent on finding Wes’s next voter-friendly wife, and it made sense to think our take-it-slow-and-see-where-it-goes

plan had been dismantled long before he crossed back over the Mississippi.

“I don’t want to wait, Addie.”

I nodded. “Of course. I completely understand. Thank you for coming and telling me in person. That means a lot.”

His tilted head cast a shadow across my face, blocking the sun from my eyes. “I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying.”

“No, of course I understand.” I placed my hand on his and squeezed.

“And I’m sad. Of course I’m sad.” Sad didn’t even begin to describe the disappointment coursing through my body like a faulty water feature that just dumped all the water from one level to the next, causing a messy splash that necessitated the use of Caution: Wet Floor signs, rather than slowly trickling it down in a way that was meant to be beautiful and mesmerizing.

“But you’re running for president of the United States, Wes.

You’re going to be president of the United States.

It’s difficult to compete with that.” And it wasn’t like this was the first sacrifice I had

been asked to make for my country.

“Okay, Addie—”

“No, really, it’s okay—”

My words were cut off by his fingers at the back of my neck, tilting my head toward his as he climbed onto his knees next

to me on the log and brought his lips down on mine. I dropped my coffee into the snow and knotted my fingers into his hair

to assist him in his absolute crushing of my senses. His other arm looped around my neck as he whispered against me, “I choose

you, chucklehead. I want you . I’m not going anywhere.” He nibbled gently at my bottom lip, then traced kisses across the phantom fire where his teeth

had been. “Is that clear enough for you?”

I was rendered completely incapable of speech, of course, so I just nodded up at him, and he smiled and returned to his own

side of the log. And once the branches of the tree above us finally stopped spinning, and my vision quit putting on its neon-colored

kaleidoscope display, I couldn’t help but compare our two states of being. Wes sat there smirking, sipping his cold coffee

and watching me, one of his rugged construction worker boots (Givenchy, I could now confirm) crossed onto his knee. I, meanwhile,

was sweating and surrounded by brown snow, and my watch had just offered to notify the authorities for the second time in

a span of six minutes.

“You look like Mountain Town Ken,” I finally said.

A laugh burst from him, but he squelched it quickly in favor of pretending to take offense. “Hey, I worked really hard to

make sure I brought the right clothes this time!”

I grinned and looked down at my fingernails, digging into my knees. “You’re really staying?”

“Yep. If that’s okay with you.”

I nodded. “It’s okay with me.”

“And look, we can still go as slow as you want. I just... I don’t know, Addie.” He lifted his sunglasses and rested them

on his head. “I can’t deny there’s a part of me that wants to be president. But every part of me—every single part—knows that if I could go back and do one thing differently in my life, I never would have left

this place. I never would have left you. And I was standing there at the statehouse yesterday, making this incredibly saccharine

political poppycock speech about the governor, all about the ‘wise’ things he used to say and how much I missed being able

to go to him for counsel.” He rolled his eyes. “And in the midst of it all, I heard Doc in my head, actually giving me good advice. If he told me once, he told me a thousand times: ‘Smart people make mistakes. Only idiots make the

same mistake twice.’”

“I believe his word was clodpoles . At least that’s how he said it to me.”

Wes laughed and nodded. “I don’t want to be a clodpole.” He used his thumb to absorb a line of moisture on my cheek.

“You could still seek reelection, you know. You could keep being a senator.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You’re going to put a lot of people out of work.”

He did a double take and watched me out of the corners of his eyes. “‘I want to be with you, too, Wes.’ ‘I’m so glad you chose

me over being the leader of the free world, Wes.’ I feel like there are so many things you could say that wouldn’t make me want to go drown myself in a frozen lake.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I know.” He nodded. “There will be a lot of new jobs opening up in DC thanks to this little shake-up I’m causing, and I intend to write every last one of the people I’m laying off a glowing letter of recommendation.” He took a sip of coffee before adding, “Well, except for one.”

“Phil was just doing his job.”

“No, see, that’s what I told myself, too, at first. But that should never be the job. Hurting people? Trying to intimidate

people? Acting like it’s all for my own good when he’s personally witnessed how lost I’ve been without you for more than half

my life?” He shook his head. “Nah. I left him in Denver.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.” He turned to me and smiled, quite proud of the moral stance he had taken. “I mean, he was at a major international

airport, so it wasn’t like I dropped him in the desert or anything, but he doesn’t get to do that to the woman I love and

then fly back with me on a comfortable private jet with leather seats and a surround-sound entertainment center.”

I laughed and then asked the one last question I had—the one last thing I needed to make sure he had thought of—before I could

finally give in to the romance of it all. “So what will you do? For a job, I mean.”

“I genuinely have no idea. Although I did hear Adelaide Springs may be in search of a new mayor soon...”

I tsked and shook my head. “Just like a politician. Roll into town and immediately believe you’re qualified to run the place.”

He smiled and stood from the log, gathered my dropped cup, and slipped it into his empty one before stretching out his hand

for me. “Well, can I at least buy you breakfast and start running some campaign-slogan ideas past you?”

I placed my hand in his and allowed him to pull me to my feet. “Sure, but you should know—if people see us together, they’re

going to talk.”

“About how much my clothes make me look like a local and it’s easy to forget I ever left, you mean?” He threw his arm around

my shoulders and pulled me against him as we began walking back toward town.

I chuckled. “Yeah. That’s it.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and reached up with my other hand to snatch the sunglasses off his head and slip them over my eyes as we walked toward the sun. “And by the way, I’m glad you chose me over being leader of the free world.”

He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. “The free world never stood a chance.”