haven’t thought in terms of one day for a very long time.”
“I can’t imagine that. You were such a dreamer. Your dreams fed mine.”
“Funny, I always thought yours fed mine.”
“Maybe it was both, and maybe you should think about what you want out of life,” he said lightly.
Asking herself that question would be anything but light. All she’d ever wanted when they were together was to travel the world with him, going from one adventure to the next, discovering things about each other and different cultures along the way. Did she still want that? She certainly still wanted him.
“What do you want, Zev?” she asked as they walked around the side of the inn. “Are you happy traveling and living in your van or on your boat? Not having one place to call home?”
“That’s a loaded question. You know what home feels like to me.”
Remembering his sweet words, she said, “Me.”
“Exactly. I love seeing the world and not knowing what tomorrow will hold. I love the thrill of trying to find what other people think is lost forever and getting up one morning and reading about something across the country and then getting on a plane and going to see it, just so I don’t miss out. I love the work I do, babe, just like you do.”
“I can hear that.”
“I don’t know if I could ever do what you did and stay in one place for very long. I mean, look at where I’m sleeping. I get restless if I’m confined. You of all people know that. Hell, you used to be that way, too.”
Even when they’d gone off to college and could sleep in each other’s dorm rooms, they’d still go on midnight adventures. The outdoors had been such a huge draw to both of them, it wasn’t unusual for one of them to wake up the other at two in the morning and say, Let’s go explore. Goose bumps rose on Carly’s arms. She missed those times. But they couldn’t have stayed like that forever. Eventually real life would have gotten in the way. At least that’s what she’d told herself on the rare occasion she’d allowed herself to think about what their lives would be like together.
“That’s true,” she said. “But after Mexico, the safety of knowing what tomorrow held was what saved me.”
“I can see that,” he said as they came to the backyard. “I’m sorry, but I can’t wrap my head around you not craving the excitement or the unstoppable need to explore. It seemed like it ran through your veins, like it does mine. You really don’t miss lying beneath the stars planning trips to all the places you want to see?”
Hearing the enthusiasm in the voice of the man with whom she’d wanted those things made the longing she’d spent a decade repressing force itself up to the surface.
“I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss it sometimes. I just don’t think about it because I don’t think I’d give up my life here for it. This is my home now.” As she said it, worry trampled through her. Was she driving a stake between them? Even if she was, he needed to know that she wasn’t the dreamer she’d once been. She might be jumping in with both feet to this gift of a week and rediscovering parts of herself she’d missed, but she still had to maintain a foothold in reality. Their lives were in very different places now. At the end of their time together, Zev would go back to his life, and she’d have to shuck the rediscovered pieces of herself like old husks and fall back into her overly scheduled, though enjoyable, safe life once again.
“And it’s a beautiful place to call home,” he said, snapping her from her thoughts. He waved at the majestic mountains, the glistening lake, and the wedding tent, which looked even prettier in the starlight. Suddenly he laughed and splayed his hands up toward the sky. “I finally get it!”
“Get what?”
“I have been wondering why the universe chose now to bring us back together, and I think I just figured it out,” he said excitedly. “You need me.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if I didn’t need you all those years ago?”
“That was a different type of need. I think the universe knew what we didn’t. We both needed to grow up in order to heal and become the adults we were meant to be. And yeah, it sucked to be apart.