Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,68

he asked me if he could ask her,” Marissa clarified. “It was all really sweet.”

“But he didn’t actually ask you to marry him yet?”

“Not yet,” Marissa said. “We’re waiting until we’ve got this place set up. I was hoping, umm… it’s short notice, I know, but we could start the lease on the first of next month.”

“That’s…”

“Ten days,” Marissa said. “It’ll take us a while to get up and running, we’d both still have time to work for you for a while. If you want.”

“Of course I want,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I want? I’ll never replace you.”

“Right,” Marissa said, biting her lip a moment before continuing. “Right, but… this sets you free, too.”

I blinked at her.

“I saw the way you looked at him,” Marissa said, and I assumed she wasn’t talking about Omar.

She was talking about Wes. Of course she was.

“You could go home,” she said. “Go to him. Start over.”

“But I have—”

“Staff I could really use here,” Marissa said. “A crappy apartment you’re overpaying for and a business you lost your passion for a while back. And I mean… you’ve got me, you’ll always have me, but I’m about to be real busy, and I can’t be your only friend. It’s not good for you.”

I swallowed.

Free.

This would set me free.

Was that what I wanted?

“Let’s talk about kitchen setup,” I said, changing the subject and striding toward the back room.

But in the center of my chest, tucked up under my heart, was the faintest spark of something I wasn’t even brave enough to call hope yet.

I had some thinking to do.

“Hey, Dad,” I said as soon as he answered the phone.

“Nice to hear from you. How’s the weather?”

I looked out at the overcast sky, and sighed. “I miss the sun.”

“You hate the sun,” Dad pointed out.

“I used to,” I said, chewing on my lip.

I knew what I wanted to ask, and I was afraid to hear the answer—whatever the answer was going to be. My life was changing whether I liked it or not—the question now was how.

And I was thinking about making a huge, scary change. But I needed some advice first.

“Listen, Dad, I… I was wondering, uh… how did you know Mom was the one?”

On the other end of the line, Dad burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked, confused. The last thing I’d expected was to be laughed at.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “It’s just that I made the same phone call to my dad to ask exactly that.”

“Oh.”

I hadn’t known my grandpa all that well—he’d died when I was eight—but I could imagine asking him about something like this, too. He always seemed wise.

“What did he say?”

“He told me what I’m gonna tell you: whoever you’re thinking of when you ask that, grab them with both hands and don’t let go.”

“Oh,” I repeated, stomach twisting.

He was right. Of course he was right.

And if I didn’t grab Wes with both hands and never let go of him right now, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

The changes I was thinking about were scary, but the thought of losing Wes was much, much worse.

He wouldn’t wait for me forever, and I wouldn’t expect him to.

So the choice was obvious, really.

“Wes is a lucky man to have you,” Dad said.

What?

“You knew?” I asked, blood rushing in my ears. How long had he known? Did Wes tell him? Did someone else?

“Kiddo, I’m old, not stupid,” he said. “I’m sure you thought you were being subtle, but I knew from the first moment I saw you in the same room. And I’ve got my spies in town, and you did invite him to stay with you in your one-bed apartment.”

Right.

I should’ve known Dad had it figured out. That was why he didn’t ask any questions.

“The couch pulls out,” I defended.

“I saw him climbing down from your window,” Dad confessed. “Didn’t take a genius to figure out why he’d want to be in your room without me knowing about it. You fell hard, huh?”

“Yeah,” I admitted softly. “Yeah, I… yeah. I love him, Dad.”

“Makes two of us, although I think you mean it a little differently.”

“Maybe, yeah,” I agreed, still trying to get a handle on everything I was feeling. Relief, joy, excitement.

But also an urgent kind of longing that made me want to be on the other side of the country, snuggled up under the blankets of my own bed, curled around Wes and watching the rain outside drip down a window I’d looked out of for twenty