Page 85 of Falling

Ryder snorted, grabbing the bag that’d come with the coffees. The smell of maple syrup that escaped from it made my stomach growl again.

“Smoked maple glazed donut bites,” Ryder said, offering the bag to reveal it was full of glistening balls of pastry, charred here and there. “I love Harvey’s brain.”

I still wasn’t sure I could eat, but if there was anything in the world I could eat, it was a pastry from Grinding.

Or maybe toast. If Booker had made it.

I took one of the bites with two careful fingers and popped it into my mouth whole to give myself time to think while I chewed. A happy noise escaped me as the flavor burst over my tongue—smoky maple, as promised.

It reminded me of childhood Sunday mornings and the burnt pancakes Evie had made me a hundred times or more. She’d never stopped burning them. I wasn’t sure I could enjoy a pancake any way other than lightly cremated now.

I wished I could hash all this out with her. Only that would mean coming out to her, and I wasn’t sure I was ready.

Not that I was afraid my proudly bisexual sister would... reject me, or whatever. It was just that if I actually came out to anyone, I’d have to put a label on it, and I wasn’t sure what that would be.

Right now, I liked Booker. No one was asking anything more complex of me.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? It was the thing with the job, too. What if I was just sticking to a comfortable status quo? What if I regretted it later?

“The job in Chicago is the opportunity of a lifetime,” I said, licking my fingers. “I might literally never get another offer like it. It’s like winning the lottery.”

Ryder nodded, shaking the bag at me again.

This time, I shook my head. I’d gotten away with the first one, but my stomach was still tied up in knots. I didn’t want to add nausea to my list of problems.

The hard thing about this week was meant to be the council budget meeting on Monday. So much for that.

Ryder shrugged, taking another donut bite for himself. “So,” he began donut raised to his mouth. “Question is, do you want to be a lottery winner?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Ryder held a finger up while he chewed and swallowed, licking his lips. “The fact that we can conceive the question implies it’s possible not to.”

I raised a brow. Both at the idea, and at Ryder saying it.

“I fell down a philosophy of linguistics loophole,” he said. “I was thinking about setting my next novel on an alien planet. The aliens need a language.”

A smile tugged at my lips in spite of everything. If I took nothing else away from my time in Otter Bay, at least I’d learned that Ryder White, world’s hottest leading man—in my opinion, anyway—was a dork. A bigger dork than me, even.

Did the fact that all I could think about was leaving mean there was no other choice? I wasn’t sure how the principle of what Ryder had just said worked.

“The thing is,” Ryder continued, pausing for a sip of his coffee. “I care about you, so I’m gonna give you the same advice Booker did. You should do whatever will make you happiest.”

I sighed.

“And what is that?”

Ryder made an ambivalent hand gesture while he swallowed another mouthful of coffee. “If I could tell you that, I would. Heck, if I could generally tell people that, I’d make a killing as a life coach.”

“Would you?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Ryder admitted. “I mean, a person with that ability could, I guess, but I don’t want to be a life coach.”

I finally sipped my own coffee while I considered that.

What I want is for you to be happy. Whatever that looks like.

If only I had any idea.