Which was okay.
I inhaled the spicy scent of the pine needles. Tried to find peace in the bird song.
Except a rising tide of emotion was clogging my windpipe—so swiftly I had to sit down on a log, hands on my knees. Head between my legs.
It was okay. I was okay. The dream wasn’t real. My wrists were free. Shoulders back. Nothing but expansive forest stretching behind me.
There was moisture on my cheeks, and I hurriedly wiped a stray tear. So stupid. I was just over-wrought. Homesick.
Actually, taking a lonely walk through the woods might not have been the best idea.
Suddenly there was a sharp snap, like ice breaking. Another one—distinctive, like a big animal moving through the brush. I jumped clear off the log, muffling a scream.
“If you’re a bear, I will fuck you up,” I shouted, looking around for a weapon.
But of course, it wasn’t a bear. Or a cougar or a moose or even a large deer.
Because only in Big Sur could you wander through the woods and bump into the Viking you both desperately wanted to fuck and desperately wanted to avoid.
“Josie?” Gabe asked, hands up in surrender.
I let out a long breath. Propped my hands on my hips. “Oh, it’s you,” I said, trying for casual but failing miserably.
He gave me a mirthful look, an eyebrow raised. “Indeed. What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” I shot back. On pure instinct, I was walking toward him. His half-grin spread across his handsome, bearded face.
“This is my hiking trail. I come here when I need to… sort some things out,” he said, shrugging.
“Oh,” I said as my feet took me right into Gabe’s orbit. The tips of our shoes touched. I looked up, craning my neck, to meet his gaze. “Well. This national forest isn’t big enough for the both of us.”
Gabe chuckled. Then he reached out and hooked his pinkie finger through mine. “Can I say that I’m happy you’re here? And… do you want to keep hiking?” A shy smile. “With me?”
Last night, in the depths of my insomnia, just the thought of Gabe comforted me back to sleep. Now in the middle of the woods, on the verge of panic, he arrived. Just in time.
It was okay.
I was okay.
“Yes,” I said, allowing my finger to squeeze back.
Chapter 27
Gabe
Walking through the wilderness with Josie, I felt more nervous than the night of my senior prom. I’d taken Sasha, who I was hoping would end up being my wife one day, but that felt like a relaxing day at the beach compared to how I felt now. Part of me had worried that our accidental coffee date was the last time we were going to see each other. My dad had called later that night and mentioned that the clearing was going faster than they predicted.
I was running out of time.
Although it wasn’t like I had a plan. Josie had been explicit in her wishes.
But after yesterday, I had hope.
“So… you’re sorting out some stuff, huh?” she asked. Josie looked beautiful in the forest. Her dark tresses in a high bun, her ears twinkling with piercings. She wore an over-sized sweater, black leggings, and boots. The play of the mist and the waning light made her look like a watercolor painting.
“Just thinking through some things,” I hedged since of course I’d come out here to think of her. And I was pretty sure she knew that. “How about you?”
Josie bit her lip. “I’d remembered what you’d said. About nature as therapy. And I’ve… I haven’t been sleeping well the past couple nights. I thought the woods might help.”
I wasn’t surprised she was seeking some help. When I’d come upon her in the woods, she’d looked pale and a little distraught. I thought about what she’d said, about being too in her head. Wondered what that meant.
I nudged her shoulder with mine. “You don’t think I’m weird after all?” I lifted a low-hanging branch up for her as she walked beneath it.
“Not at all. Actually, I’ve been watching the waves by the cabins, you know, the ones by the bookstore?”
“Of course. They’re beautiful. And that stretch of beach is so dramatic.”
Her dark eyes brightened. “I think that’s why I’m so captivated by it. Sometimes I just listen to the waves crashing against the shore. I’m starting to understand. The more I just let myself… be in nature, the more my tiny anxieties seem to quiet down. Not go away completely but…”
“Like a reprieve,” I said.
“Reprieve. That’s a great word for it.”
We walked in silence for a minute before I continued. “I know it’s different than how a lot of people live right now, being constantly stimulated and consumed with stuff. But I’m busy enough with The Bar. Between actually running it, then all the customers, finances, inventory… I usually end every day feeling like my brain is full enough without letting in anything else. I come out here, and there’s this quiet. You can almost feel it on your skin. Everything just… clears away.”
“That’s interesting. You know, back home I’m almost never surrounded by silence. Not just the city, which is so loud and… sparkling,” she said with a sigh. “But when I’m actually in my apartment, alone, I always have music on. Or the television. Or a podcast. Or I’m talking on the phone. Thinking about that now… you’re right. Every time there’s quiet, my mind goes on overdrive.”
“It’s finally not overstimulated, so everything rushes back in. I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes, if I haven’t hiked for a while, I put it off. Because I know the first hour my mind will be a fucking mess.”
Josie nodded, looking down at her feet, thinking. We didn’t talk for a few minutes, but I watched her looking around. Seeing the tiny details of the forest alive and all around us.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” I quoted. “To front only the essential facts of life and to see if I could not learn what it is to teach and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived.”
A log, slick with moss, lay across a creek, and Josie walked across it gracefully as I followed her.
“Thoreau?” she asked.
“Yes. One of my favorite lines from Walden.” We hiked up a slight incline, both of us starting to breathe more heavily. This was always my favorite part, feeling my body wake up. Muscles burning, lungs filling with air.
Josie looked thoughtful. “You have a really good life here,” she said, but it wasn’t a question. She looked at me with the same pensive expression. “Right? You own this great little bar. Live in the place you love the most, surrounded by family. I was just thinking about that Walden quote, and I don’t know.” Josie reached down to gather a bright orange leaf. She looked at it, and I imagined her artist’s eye seeing things I never would. “I don’t think anyone could say you weren’t truly living here.”
“Well… thank you. For what you said. I guess I can thank my parents and Robert, Calvin’s grandfather, for that. Be honest. Be present. Go outside.” I laughed a little. “Not bad life advice, considering.”
“And love,” she said, smiling almost sadly. “You’ll have that too. And then your life will be full.” Her eyes met mine, and I reached forward before I could stop myself, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. Letting the palm of my hand rest lightly on her cheek.
“Josie,” I started, but she turned sharply, stalking toward a fallen redwood tree laying across the forest floor. It was a real giant, and I’d admired it every time I walked past it. Wondering when it had fallen, this mighty tree that had seen generations of life moving around it and through it. That had stood through lightning that singed the earth but also softly falling snow. Storms and sun, life and death.
And now Josie, running her hands up and down the bark like she was trying to memorize the texture.
“You think I can walk it?” she asked, turning to me with a new light in her eyes, the charged moment before seemingly forgotten.
“This?
” I said, pointing. “I have a sneaking suspicion that you can do anything and everything, Josefine.”
She looked startled for a moment, like she expected me to say she wasn’t capable.
“Boost me up, mountain man?” she asked. I tried not to read into the slightly flirtatious tone in her voice.
“Of course,” I said, walking over and kneeling down. I held out my hands, lacing them together and looked up at her. I liked this vantage point. I liked being at her fucking feet.
And I liked her looking down at me, lips poised to give me an order.
Her cheeks flushed, but she only said, “Thanks,” before sliding her boot into my hands. I boosted her up.
“Can I use your head as a step?” she asked, placing her boot on my head with barely constrained laughter. I joined her, trying to shake her off.
“No, you can’t,” I said. She pulled herself up the rest of the way.
“Well, you’re no help,” she said, looking down from her new perch, slightly out of breath and grinning. “And look, I did it,” she said, standing up and spreading her arms.
“You sure did,” I said. Josie looked like a goddamn queen up there. Tall, proud, overseeing her enchanted kingdom.
“What a bad-ass,” I called up to her.
She gave me a goofy smile, flashing the peace sign. “I’ll be down in a minute. I just want to walk up here. Entertain yourself, please,” she said and then stalked down the log confidently. I watched for a minute, feeling the mist falling around me. Attempting to rein in the inevitable progress of my thoughts shooting towards the future. Wanting to ask Josie why. Or suggest how.
Be present, I reminded myself, breathing in the earth.
Letting her go.
Chapter 28
Josie
I was on top of the world. Standing on this giant, felled redwood, the sprawling forest all around me. Mist clung to the branches and to my skin in a gentle caress. There was bird song, the scent of dead leaves. And nothing to distract me. Not my phone, not the television, not music or art or work.
Just… this. My heart beating. The light layer of sweat beneath my clothing. I balanced, one foot in front of the other, and walked down the log, imagining it when it was alive, soaring into the clouds.
The hush of the forest was tangible. No sounds of traffic, no airplanes. For a moment, just like Gabe said, a rush of thoughts crowded my mind. Is it okay that I’m having fun with Gabe? Is it okay that I want to kiss him? When are the roads going to be cleared? What will happen when I leave? Will I ever meet someone like him again?
And then, like a burst of static in a silent room, I heard Clarke’s voice.
Do you think you can take that job?
Do you really think that’s a good idea?
What if you’re not able to do that justice?
Clarke had a habit of endlessly underestimating me until I was able to do it on my own. Count myself out. It was the kind of subtle manipulation that started off as a mild irritant, almost unnoticeable. Before Clarke, I didn’t give a fuck if other people thought I couldn’t do something. But he started to say it so much that I came to believe it.
Until I didn’t even have to ask his opinion anymore. I just stopped doing things.
Yet here I was, climbing on a fucking redwood tree, and I wasn’t even afraid of falling.
The thoughts swirled together like a maelstrom. So I eliminated one of my senses and shut my eyes.
This forest wasn’t capable of caring about my thoughts. This forest only knew how to do one thing: thrive. In all kinds of conditions and against all odds. It just… consumed nutrients and oxygen. Bathed in the sunlight. Let the rain streak down its sides. Rooted itself.
I was starting to understand.
“You like it up there?” Gabe called up to me, and I nodded, glancing down at him. My Viking was cute in his natural environment, leaning against a smaller tree like he was a second away from tearing it down with his bare hands.
“I love it,” I said. “I can see why you love it here. In Big Sur. I know I can be kind of a Los Angeles snob, but… this place has a certain magic to it, doesn’t it?”
I sat, dangling my legs off the side. Gabe reached up to help. His hands clamped around my upper thighs, then my hips, then my waist as I slid down the log. Slid down his big, hard body although his hands stayed respectful.
“You’ll never leave this place,” I said, voice thick.
Gabe was looking down at me, and for a moment, I thought he might glide those hands up, under my countless layers, along my ribcage.
Instead he let go.
“Never,” he said.
There you have it.
“I understand,” I said.
He gave me a sad smile before turning back toward the trail. “Shall we, bad-ass? I mean, maybe you should lead the way.” The humor was back in his voice.
I grinned back, grateful for the abatement: from his body, his heat, the gorgeous way his eyes crinkled at the sides.
“No way,” I said, stepping back into place along the trail. “I’ll always be a city girl at heart, which means my ability to lead us in a direction where we don’t die—”
“—or get eaten by bears,” Gabe said.
“True. Or get eaten—by anything—isn’t something you should place much confidence in. But I can see why your childhood here was something you still hold so much respect for. This,” I said, waving my hand around me, “is like living in a magical tree house but all the time. So much room for imagination and playfulness.”
“It never leaves either. Even though I own a grungy dive bar with almost no windows, the feel of this place is always there. Always making itself known. Probably because the feel of the place is in the people, too.”
“I love a good grungy bar though,” I said, nudging his shoulder. “You know The Bar has a certain charm.”
Gabe flashed a wry grin. “I love that place.”
I laughed. “I know you do. You make it very obvious.”
We paused for a moment to climb a steeper hill, and I realized I didn’t feel nervous or weird about the fact that Gabe was witnessing me makeup-less, in workout clothes, as I huffed my way up hills, sweating and probably red-faced. Because I liked what we were doing, liked that he was showing me something that he loved—his tree house escape from the world.
I’d kept myself meticulous for Clarke, even when I wanted to just hang out in sweatpants. Meticulous, pretty, and always made-up.
“My favorite viewpoint is just up here,” Gabe said. “Maybe another mile. Are you down for it?”
“Let’s do it,” I said. My body was relaxing into a mindless, comforting rhythm.
We were pleasantly quiet for a few minutes until Gabe cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Can I ask you a kind of intense question?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“That first night we met, you told me you didn’t believe in love. For yourself, although you believed it could happen for others.”
“That’s true. I do believe that,” I said.
“Why? Did something happen that destroyed your ability to believe in love?”
Destroyed. That was a good word for it. Lies and half-truths swarmed on my tongue, but I surprised myself by being honest.
“I was engaged,” I said and watched a visible reaction shudder through him. He turned his big body towards me, eyes wide with sympathy. “And I don’t really like to talk about it. But it happened. And I’m not engaged anymore so…” I trailed off.
Butterflies flittered through my stomach, my body on high alert. I hated talking about this, only because the emotions and feelings I’d worked so hard to process would rear up so quickly, affect me as viscerally as they had on the morning of the wedding.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said as we reached the view point. Gabe turned to face me, emotions roiling in his expression. “And I’m really fucking sorry that happened to you.”
“It’s… it’s okay,” I said, di
stracted by his masculine scent. “It was two years ago. I’ve moved on. But it’s the reason I don’t do relationships. Or any kind of… intensity.”
A stunning view opened up in front of us. A rich layer of dark forest and then the wide blue expanse of the ocean. It stretched on and on, so vast and so far-reaching, I had the oddest sensation that it must never end. Like ancient explorers, so sure their ships were going to pitch off the edges of the Earth. My throat tightened as I took it all in.
“I wish I had had a place like this. Back when… it all happened. The engagement.”
Everything was roaring up again. Lucia, eyes red and face pale as a ghost, standing in the doorway. He’s not coming, she’d said. So simple, those three words. Like we were meeting for a coffee and he’d gotten stuck in traffic. He’s not coming.
“I’ve had my fair share of revelations at this spot. Sometimes it just makes me sadder. It’s the vastness of the ocean, how small it makes me feel.” He laughed softly. “And not many things make me feel small. But sometimes I’ll hike up here, feeling lonely, and the ocean will make me feel lonelier.” I looked at his strong profile; his full beard. That golden hair. “Other times it’s my powerful reminder to keep on going. I mean, if this much beauty can exist in the world, how can I not be motivated to keep going? I know The Bar is just, well, a bar but it’s really important to me. The legacy. Its role in the community.”
“And I know what I do is just… makeup. Buying into all kinds of standards of beauty and product consumption. But—I just love it. It’s simple but—”
“I understand,” Gabe said. “You can’t help what you love.”
We stood in silence for a long time, and when Gabe finally suggested we head back, I had to hide my face, covertly wiping away tears.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Of course,” he said, pulling the pack on and settling it across his broad back.
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