She went quiet for a long moment. I felt the teetering. Like this could go either way. I held my breath.
“Okay,” she said finally.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you see a future with me?”
It was one of those questions that you don’t really want the answer to. She was being brutally honest with me, and I knew she wouldn’t sugarcoat this either. But I had to know.
“Our lives don’t fit,” she said simply. “They just don’t.”
She didn’t need to elaborate. I knew what she meant. We lived too far apart. She couldn’t work here, and I couldn’t move. I was too young for her…
At this point I wasn’t even sure it was the age thing that was the actual problem. I don’t think that had been an issue for her in a while. It was that I hadn’t lived long enough to figure my life out yet.
She had almost a decade head start, and even then I’d never achieve the things she had professionally or financially. But if I were older, maybe it would have closed the gap a little.
If I could snap my fingers and fast-forward a decade or two, I would. I’d lose all that time if it would make the difference.
Maybe I’d be a successful carpenter in twenty years. I might own the property and have a business selling my woodworking. Have an innkeeper working for me to take care of the guests. Or maybe I’d be living in the house and not in the dusty garage she had to sleep in to be with me.
But as it stood? I couldn’t even afford to take her on a trip or buy her something nice. I’d met her friends. I couldn’t imagine hanging out with them, let alone their husbands. I had nothing in common with those people.
But the funny thing was, even though I didn’t fit into her life, she fit into mine.
When she was in Wakan, she was my girlfriend. She didn’t want the title, but it didn’t matter. It was what it was.
But when she was back in her own world, I wasn’t her boyfriend. I don’t think I even existed for her outside of this place. And I didn’t know how to change that—and neither did she.
I felt desperate all of a sudden. Like a clock had begun ticking. An expiration date had been set on this thing between us, and she was right—it wasn’t a sex thing. Not even close. I’m not sure it ever really had been.
A small part of me hoped I could change her mind. If I was good enough to her, if I made her happy enough, maybe she’d reconsider. Maybe even if she got that job, we could figure it out. We could make it work.
But the realistic side of me knew none of those things were going to happen. There wasn’t going to be a save.
All I could do was give her what I could. And that wasn’t enough. She had a whole different life in a whole different world, and she’d only ever been here to visit. It was the reality of this situation. I’d always been on borrowed time with her. And I think I’d always known it.
I had to be in this with my eyes wide open. I had to sign up to be hurt when the time came for this to end. Because it would end. She’d made that clear.
“I’m in,” I said. “When it’s over, it’s over.”
But I knew even then, it wouldn’t be. I suspected it would never really be over.
At least not for me.
Chapter 29
Alexis
I spent four months with Daniel. Four amazing, incredible months.
It was August now, twelve weeks since we’d had our talk. The tourists were back, and I’d watched them breathe life into Daniel’s town.
The ice-cream and fudge shops were open, the pizza place and Mexican restaurant were back and had an hour wait every night, and the RV park was packed. The Grant House was booked seven days a week, and I helped Daniel with it while I was there. He usually wouldn’t let me get up to put the coffee on. He wanted me to sleep. But I spent the rest of the day doing what he did. Making beds, checking in guests, helping prepare breakfast.
I hated to admit it, but now that I helped Daniel, I understood what Neil had meant about me not knowing how to run a house. It was a lot. Repairs, maintenance, landscaping, cleaning. Even if these things were being delegated, they were a ton of work.
I’d been so shielded and privileged growing up. We’d had a property manager who dealt with it all, and then Neil had done it when we moved in together. Even in my ER, my nurses did all the dirty work for me. But I was learning. And it was changing how I saw the world around me and how I wanted to be seen.
I didn’t like that others had to take care of me. I wanted to know how to take care of myself. I wanted to pull my weight and learn to be self-reliant so that when I did depend on someone, it was by choice and not necessity. And it was Daniel who was teaching me how.