before they hit the road helped. Every moment was occupied with meetings with the city council, the mayor, Nate Prudhoe, his crew, his hockey team, his music buddies.
Everyone expressed shock or distress over his decision, and most urged him to reconsider. It touched him that the town had accepted him so completely.
Only Harris Badger seemed unworried by this sudden move. “Eh, you’ll be back,” he said with a shrug. “I thought about leaving once. It didn’t sit right, and I turned around when I reached Tok. We’ll be seeing you again.”
Darius shrugged and gave the man a hug anyway.
Saying goodbye to S.G. was the hardest part of all—not including Kate, obviously. That goodbye had been a total disaster. S.G.’s wasn’t much better.
He took her to the Burger Queen drive-through, her favorite place for cheeseburgers. But she flat-out refused to accept that they were leaving.
“Dylan doesn’t want to go,” she kept saying. “He likes it here.”
“I think he likes you, S.G.. Not the town.”
She blinked her wide eyes at him as two spots of pink colored her cheeks.
“That’s why we’re hoping that you’ll come to Texas for a visit.”
But she was shaking her head with a panicked no. “I can’t leave here. I don’t want to leave here. I live here now and I can’t leave.” She put her burger down on the dashboard. “You can’t make me, can you?”
“S.G., of course not. It’s just an invitation.” Slowly, her fear drained away and she picked up her cheeseburger again. “You really love Lost Harbor, don’t you? You feel safe here.”
“I don’t ever want to leave,” she said firmly.
He could understand that. Lost Harbor was the only safe haven she’d known after running away from that trapper. He could understand her attachment to the charming little spot clinging to the edge of the wilderness.
He loved it too. But what he wanted—or needed—didn’t matter right now. Dylan was all that mattered.
As far as he could tell, Dylan was fully onboard with the road trip and the move back to Texas. He threw himself into every step of the process, from packing to acquiring road trip snacks.
Every night, after the busyness of the day, Darius lay in bed and thought about Kate. Where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing, what she was thinking. He’d wake up in the middle of the night with the intense urge to text her, to beg her to see him one more time. To let him kiss her one more time.
Was this really the end? Was it really so easy for her to dismiss him from her life?
What if he opened his heart and told her just how deep his feelings for her went? What if he told her he…loved her?
But how fair was that when he’d made the decision to leave? And when he’d committed to putting Dylan first, no matter what he himself wanted?
So he turned his phone off and pulled a pillow over his head, knowing how absurd that was.
Sure, hide from his feelings for Kate. That would work.
By the time Departure Day arrived, he’d had three nights of rotten sleep. His eyes were gritty with fatigue as he packed up his bedding. The bed and mattress were staying put, to be picked up later by the thrift store.
Same with the couch, where Dylan slept. Except that it was empty. All of Dylan’s things had already been packed in his backpack, which was propped against the couch.
He was probably saying one last goodbye to S.G., or having one last quad shot at Gretel’s Cafe.
Darius carried the box containing his bedding and Dylan’s backpack out to the RV. The Sun Seeker had a little kitchenette and a coffeemaker, along with the groceries they’d packed. But instead of wasting their road trip supplies, he decided to mosey down to Gretel’s and join Dylan.
As he strolled the peaceful streets, he took deep breaths of the fresh Alaska air, so different from Texas humidity. If only he could bottle this up and take a whiff when he needed it. He nodded to a few people working in their front yards as he passed. Everywhere he looked, daffodils were blooming like splashes of earthbound sunshine.
Was Kate planting those raspberry canes? Was her hair falling out of its ponytail? Did she have mud on her shirt? Was she thinking about him?
Stop it.
No one at Gretel’s had seen Dylan. He ordered a large coffee to go and quickly walked home, hoping the boy had reappeared. No sign of him