Sizzling dang, her questions damage. They’re ones I’ve requested myself however selected to disregard in favor of seeing the place issues went with Lucy. However is that truthful to her? Possibly it’s not.

My head spins with the implications.

“Do you assume you possibly can ever be pleased…” Lucy takes in a deep breath. “Staying right here? Working the meals truck?”

On this second? I need to say sure. However I can’t be hasty. I’ve to research. To assume, away from her and all of the issues she makes me really feel.

She plows on. “It’s simply, I’ve been questioning about…the longer term. And that’s most likely actually presumptuous of me, as a result of what sort of lady acts like a number of kisses means there’s a future there, proper? However nonetheless, I don’t know the place that is going, and it’s driving me a bit bit loopy.” Her luminous eyes blink up at me. “Am I loopy, Blake?”

“Possibly.”

She smacks my chest, and that makes me chuckle.

Then I take her face gently between my fingers. “However it’s not presumptuous in any respect. I see a future with you too. And I assume a query to ask you proper again—do you assume you possibly can ever be pleased dwelling someplace aside from Hallmark Seashore?”

Are we actually having this dialog? My coronary heart thuds in my chest.

She licks her lips. “I’m unsure. It’s been my refuge—my dwelling—for a very long time, even earlier than I ever moved right here. The thought of leaving it’s sort of like a knife to my chest.” Sitting again, she takes my fingers from her face and holds them in her lap as an alternative. “Particularly for somebody who would possibly find yourself being too busy for me. I…I don’t need to find yourself like my mother. Devastated by love.”

Love? Does she love me? No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying if she got here to like me…

Nonetheless, my neck heats with the thought. My abdomen swirls.

“Sunshine, the very very last thing I ever would need to do is devastate you. To harm you.” And I can’t keep away from it any longer. It’s time to inform her the factor about my dialog with Dale. “That is actually laborious, however there’s one thing I have to let you know.”

Lucy straightens ever so barely. “That sounds ominous.” She’s making an attempt to joke, however once I don’t joke again, she frowns. “Wait, what? What’s mistaken?”

“Uh.” I swallow laborious. Simply spit it out, man. “Dale and I made a decision that…that’s, I’m wanted…he…properly, I’m going again to Los Angeles in per week. The day after the pageant.” I pause. “Not only for a fast journey this time. For good.”

She blinks at me a number of occasions in speedy succession. “What? No, you’re leaving on the finish of July, not the start. In a month.” Her fingers draw back separately, and I really feel their loss. She hugs herself, her shoulders sinking down. I need to pull her again to me, however I do know we have to face this.

Sighing, I run a hand by means of my hair. “That was the unique plan, however Dale wants me again sooner. One of many causes I went down there was to movie a cooking spot on a morning information present. They appreciated me and need me to maintain doing it. Dale thinks it’d result in my very own present down the road.”

“And that’s what you need? To be a star chef?”

“Not essentially. However it’ll be nice publicity for the restaurant.”

“Oh.” And I see it—her withdrawing from me. Her eyes are shuttering, her lips turning into flat, her cheeks deflating. Like each little bit of unfavorable emotion she’s feeling is being wiped from her reminiscence, from her core, and he or she’s turning into a robotic. Hiding from me.

Then she flicks on a smile. “Properly, that’s nice. I’m happy with you.” She leaps up from her spot on the sofa. “I assume you’re going to be actually busy the remainder of this week, then.” Her ft begin to again up, like she’s going to run and race to her room. Away from me. “We must always most likely simply?—”

“Lucy.” I hop up and catch her across the waist, pull her to me. However as an alternative of snuggling into my arms, she pushes in opposition to my chest with no phrase. I launch her. “Please don’t?—”

A flicker of despair. “I can’t do that, Blake.”

I stiffen. “Do what?”

“This.” She factors between us. “Every week? You recognize that’s not sufficient time to determine something out. The strain that places on us…it’s simply an excessive amount of.”

“There doesn’t need to be strain, Lucy. Not from me. We’ll spend the week collectively, proceed to get to know ourselves on this context, after which I’ll go. We’ll name each night time, textual content daily, and I’ll come again and go to once I can?—”

“And that’s the important thing phrase. When you may.” She sniffs and appears away. “What occurs when the remainder of the world turns into far more attention-grabbing than this one, otherwise you simply get too slowed down within the particulars of that life, there? You stated your self that opening a restaurant is a time-consuming enterprise.”

“It’s, however you’re essential too, Lucy. You’re a precedence to me, and I need to see what this may very well be.”

“You appear to have all of it deliberate out, however the factor you’re not realizing is that it’ll occur slowly. You’ll get busy. And also you gained’t imply for it to, however our relationship will slowly turn into much less of a precedence.” She takes one other step backward. “I’m simply being practical. Lengthy distance doesn’t work—not when one individual is decided to go off and reside this massive life and needs one thing so very reverse of the homebody who’s simply pleased to have a quiet, easy one.”

The one who’s left behind.

Supply: www.seynovel.com