Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling #2)

4. Grey

Finley is shaking against me. Normally, I’m fairly laid back. Samantha, a girl I’d met in the city last summer, who I’d managed to go on five dates with—a personal record—had told me I was too easygoing, that she could never tell my actual opinions on anything. I refrained from telling her that maybe it was because hers were strong enough for the both of us—that I’d learned at a very young age to adapt my personality as needed. If someone has a lot to say, I have little. If things are awkward and stilted, I can carry on a conversation for hours without much feedback. It’s a skill I learned at a very young age, when all I wanted to do was make myself into the kid my parents needed—the one they wanted.

But there’s one situation when I don’t feel the need to adapt myself, when I feel most like who I am down to my core. In a crisis. And right now, Finley is shaking. She’s gripping the edge of the counter so tightly that her knuckles are turning white with the force of it. She’s pale and colorless.

My arm falls away from her shoulder, and I move in front of her, setting the coffees down on the counter. I’m pinned between it and her, leaving so little space that she has to tilt her chin all the way up to meet my eyes.

Hers are wide, a deer in the headlights. “You told him we would go to their wedding.”

I nod calmly. “You told him we’re dating.”

That was a shock, a defibrillator right to my heart. I’ve wanted to hear those words for so long, have had dreams about it for fifteen years, and when it finally happens, it’s all some kind of twisted joke to make her ex jealous.

I’m so damn gone for her that I’ll take even that little slice if it’s all she’ll ever give me.

She swallows, her throat working with the movement, and looks away, her eyes settling in the vicinity of my neck. “I did. I just…”

She trails off, and I fill in the silence. “Wanted to make him jealous.”

Her gaze shoots back up to mine, fire behind her eyes. “No.”

I raise an eyebrow in question, and it seems to fuel the fire, stoking it higher. Her jaw sets, and she steps back, putting space between us, although there isn’t much to be had. She crosses her arms over her chest, jaw ticking.

“I’m not trying to make him jealous,” she reiterates.

Maybe I just like making her mad, maybe it’s a welcome relief from that haunted look in her eyes a moment ago, because although I actually do believe her, I mirror her stance, arms crossed, and snort. “Yeah, okay.”

The last tinge of sadness evaporates from her expression. It’s replaced with hot anger, the kind I can feel in my veins, making my blood heat and my skin too tight. There’s nothing I love more in this world than arguing with Finley. It makes me feel alive in a way I only ever feel when putting out fires. When I’m covered in sweat and soot and know everything is on the line.

“This was stupid,” she says, each word spitting out like daggers. “He’s never going to believe the two of us are together anyway. We can’t even get through a conversation without fighting.”

I give her a smirk, the one I know always makes her see red. “I don’t know, Fin. He said he always knew there was something between us. Maybe he thinks all this bickering is pent-up…” I trail off, letting the words hang in the air. “Frustration.”

“I don’t think you allow any time for frustration to get pent up, Grey,” she shoots back.

My smile hitches higher, and I take a step in her direction. She falls back, moving until her back hits the wall. “Sounds like the words of someone who’s jealous.”

Her eyes roll so hard she must see stars, but it only makes me grin wider. “I am absolutely not jealous of whatever the hell it is you engage in on a daily basis.”

I close the last bit of distance between us, pinning her between the wall and my body. She’s so much smaller than me, even though she’s tall. It makes ridiculously primal thoughts swim through my head.

“Maybe not, but he doesn’t know that,” I respond, surprised to hear my voice has gone deeper, raspier. I hope she doesn’t notice.

She holds my gaze for a long moment, shades of green and gold peppering her eyes like looking through an earth-toned kaleidoscope. I could just as easily get lost in them.

“You really think we could convince him?”

The words niggle through my chest, piercing the piece of my heart that always beats Finley . I should have thought this through better. I should have considered how hard it would be to pretend with her, to have her in so many of the ways I’ve always wanted, but for it to be fake. For her to be wanting him while doing it.

“Why do you want to convince him, Finley?”

I need to know. Because if she agrees to this because she wants to make him jealous, because she wants him back, I don’t think I can do it. I’m already so close to the edge of my sanity as it is.

Her focus drops back down to my throat, and she catches her bottom lip between her teeth. I think there’s a sheen to her eyes, one that makes my chest ache. I want to kill Gus Zimmerman for everything he’s put her through, all the heartache he’s caused. All the brightness he’s stolen from her.

She’s quiet for so long that I don’t think she’s going to answer. Finally, though, voice soft, she says, “He said he didn’t want to get married, that he never wanted to settle down. He said it wasn’t what he was looking for. But then he found her. And she was enough for him.” She pauses, lifting her gaze to mine. The look there is determination mixed with heartbreak, and it kills me. “I just want him to know I’m enough for someone.”

I just want him to know I’m enough for someone. Finley’s words still ring in my head hours later, haunting me. I don’t know what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that. I don’t know how she, of all people, could feel like that. She is the first flowers in spring, sunshine after weeks of clouds, everything I’ve never allowed myself to hope for. And she thinks she’s not enough. It makes my chest ache in a physical way. It’s so painful I have to press my palm there to soothe the hurt.

I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to ensure that she never goes to sleep questioning her worth again. I have no idea how to do that. But I’ll figure it out, if it’s the last thing I do.

I’ve barely allowed myself to think about the rest of what happened, how I agreed to pretend to date the woman I’ve been in love with for fifteen years. How I offered to attend her ex-boyfriend’s wedding with her. What we will have to do to make him jealous. Finley says that’s not why she’s doing it, and I believe her, but I want that shithead to know exactly what he gave up. He had everything I’ve ever wanted, and he let her go. He doesn’t know how good he had it, and I intend to show him.

It’s going to actually kill me.

My phone vibrates on the couch cushion next to me. I mute the baseball game on the TV and smile when I see the photo on the screen. A man in his early fifties, salt and pepper hair sticking out from beneath a too-small kids’ plastic firefighter hat.

Swiping open the call, I say, “Hey, Charlie.”

“Hey, son,” he bellows, never able to control his volume, and just like always, it makes my heart constrict a little. Charlie Holt is not my father, but it’s never stopped him from treating me like his son. The day I showed up at the fire station in town, where I now work, at five years old, he took me under his wing. He showed me around the fire station and taught me everything I know about fighting fires. Everything I know about life.

During my darkest moments, I find myself wishing he really was my father. And then I kick myself, because even though my own father has never been the caring, doting father I so desperately wanted, he’s sacrificed a lot for me, including his personal happiness. I owe him and my mom everything, and just thinking about Charlie like that is ungrateful.

“How’ve you all been?” I ask Charlie. Five years ago, he moved to a small town in Maine after meeting a woman who lived there online. I was worried for him, thinking he was being catfished, but Susan has been everything to him. Her kids and young grandkids live nearby, and he’s finally, at fifty-eight years old, getting to live the family life he always wanted. It was like he wasn’t even alive until he met her, and although I miss seeing him at the station and around town every day, I couldn’t be happier for him.

“We’re good,” he says. I can hear his smile through the phone. The smile he wears every time he gets to use we . “Maine is something else in the summer. You really should come up to visit me.”

He says this every time we chat, and every time, I promise to take him up on it. But between my schedule at the fire station here, his schedule at the fire station there, and all of his activities with his new family, the timing has never worked out.

“Soon,” I reply, just like always.

But this time, he surprised me by saying, “What do you think about coming in the next few weeks? Labor Day weekend, to be exact.”

I push myself out of the couch cushions, propping my elbows on my knees. “What?”

“There’s a job,” he says after a moment. “Here in Cape Landing. It’s not listed yet, but one of the guys is planning to retire in the fall, and they’re going to open the listing in the end of the summer.”

“A job,” I parrot. “In Cape Landing.” It’s not as if this offer is a total shock. When I started half-heartedly looking for jobs in other cities a few months ago, I told Charlie to keep an eye out for anything. He might be from a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, but he knows people all over. I just never expected there would be a job so close to him, in his own town.

From all the blurry off-center photos he’s sent me of the small coastal town, it’s idyllic. Exactly what you’d picture—lighthouses, craggy shores, lots and lots of lobsters. It’s nothing like where I imagined ending up after living in the mountains my entire life, but then again, I’m sure he didn’t either. Charlie has seemed to effortlessly trade trees and mountains for salty air and miles of rocky coastline.

“It would be a promotion. Lieutenant.”

I chew my bottom lip. I’ve been at the station in Fontana Ridge since I was eighteen, first as a volunteer, then as a firefighter after finishing the academy at twenty-two. Even with all that experience, my opportunity for advancement has been slim, since most of the company has also been there for decades. To them, I’m basically still a rookie, only having two hires after me.

But this —this would be a promotion, a chance to start over somewhere new, where the woman I’ve been in love with for half my life isn’t always there, reminding me of why I love her and why she will never, ever love me.

My jaw ticks as I think, and after I’ve been silent for too long, Charlie says, “Grey?”

“I—” I cut off, clearing the raspiness from my throat. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Charlie barks, his voice loud and booming as ever. “That’s why I called now to tell you about it. You certainly shouldn’t be making any decisions yet.”

“Okay,” I say, more to myself than him.

“About visiting…?”

My palm finds the back of my neck, kneading the muscles there. “Labor Day. I can do that,” I tell him. That’s six weeks away, two weeks after Gus’ wedding. I can’t help thinking of the agreement with Finley, my mind relaying all the possibilities of what faking could include over the next month. My skin goes hot, and my blood rushes in my ears at the thought of touching her, of kissing her. Of all the ways it’s going to wreck me at the end. Of how I don’t know how I’ll stand being around her when it’s over.

Maybe this is good. Maybe I can do this with her and leave after, move hundreds of miles away to nurse my broken heart and try to move on. Try to find someone who banishes her memory from my mind, even if I haven’t had any luck yet.

I can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “I’m excited to see you, son. I think you’ll love it here.”

My heart squeezes. “Me too.” Glancing at the clock on my phone, I say, “Listen, I’ve got to go. I have to get to Jodi’s for dinner.”

“Ah, right,” he responds. “Saturday night.”

Every Saturday since Holden and Finley were kids has been reserved for family dinners. It was the one dinner a week they weren’t allowed to skip to hang out with friends or participate in extracurriculars. It was just for the three of them until they expanded it to include me when Holden and I were in high school. Then there was June, and our group of four became five. And now Wren. With every addition, it’s like we’ve gained someone we didn’t even know was missing. If I were to move, take this job in Maine, it would be the thing I miss most.

I push the thought away, not wanting to dwell on it. “I better get off here, Charlie. Talk to you soon.” I pause, trying to think of how to say everything I’m thinking. I settle on “Thank you for thinking of me.” It’s paltry in comparison to everything I owe him, but I know he knows what I’m not saying.

“Of course, son,” he says, and I’m surprised to hear his voice has softened, even if it’s still not to a normal decibel. “You know I’d love to have you out here. It’s the only thing that could make this place any better.”

His words settle deep in my soul.

“Well, that and sweet tea. The stuff they have here shouldn’t even be called tea.”

This makes a laugh rocket out of me. It pops all the heavy emotions like deflating birthday balloons. “I’m sorry, but that’s a deal-breaker, Charlie.”

The smile in his voice is branded in my memory, even without seeing him. One side of his smile higher than the other. Laugh lines etched deep beside his eyes. Sunspots from years without sunscreen. “I’ll make you some tea, son. Just come see me.”