Seven Weeks to Forever (Love / Romance)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

My footsteps echo on the stairs leading up to Riley's apartment, so loudly he can probably hear me coming from inside. When I have to pause to cough, I realize that my mouth and throat have both gone dry. That's funny, because my palms are damp. I swallow, trying to moisten my throat so I don't cough again, and then take the last two steps while trying to remember to breathe.

Shoulders back, head and chin up, I command myself. I raise my hand and my knuckles meet the cool surface of the door. After three short but loud raps, I lower my hand and wait.

About thirty seconds pass before I try knocking again, but there's still no answer. I can't hear any noises coming from inside.

Brilliant, Noah, I think. You insist—no, command—that I come over here, and he's not even home. You didn't see that one coming?

Noah doesn't answer me, though, and I know that I'm on my own. I turn around and head down the stairs, intending to go back to my car. Riley's mom is standing in front of the studio when I round the corner, though, and I stop in my tracks when she turns her head to look at me.

"Hi, Cassidy. Are you looking for Riley?" She seems happy to see me, I notice. I guess Riley hasn't mentioned anything about our morning at the beach.

"Hi, Mrs. Da— Elizabeth. Yeah, I thought he might be here." I hear gravel crunching below my feet and realize I'm shifting from foot to foot. I force myself to stand still.

She shakes her head. "He left a while ago to go write. He said he needed a change of scenery to focus and clear his head."

Awesome. I'm probably the one to blame for that. "Do you know where he is?" I ask, trying to sound casual.

"He went to a coffee shop that's a few blocks from here. Malone's, I think it's called. It's somewhere near the Promenade, if you want to go say hi."

I get the sense that she's asking me to go find him, even though I'll be interrupting his writing time. I wonder how much she's worried about him since Amanda left this life.

"Thanks. I'll, uh, go see if I can find him." I start walking again.

"Cassidy?" I turn back to her. "It's good to see you."

There's genuine warmth in her smile. It makes me wish I had enough time left here to get to know her.

"It's good to see you, too."

She opens the door to the studio and goes inside, and I keep walking to my car. When I'm inside of it, I pull my phone out of my purse and search for the coffee shop she mentioned. It takes only a minute or two to find it and pull up driving directions. I just have to hope that Riley is still there.

The street the coffee shop is on is close by. It's only a few minutes before I pull into a parking garage that's on the same street and then head out to the sidewalk.

Here we go, all over again. I put one foot in front of the other, trying to think of what I'll say when I see him.

And there he is, sitting inside of the coffee shop, scribbling on a notepad. As I look through the coffee shop window, I see him pause to take a sip from his mug before bringing the pen back to the page. Another minute passes by while I watch him write, my feet rooted to the sidewalk.

I can do this, I think. Gulping in a lungful of air, I force my feet forward again. Chimes tinkle above the door when I push it open.

"Hi there," the barista calls out from behind the counter. He gives me a quick wave and then returns to flipping through a magazine.

Riley looks up at the doorway. Our eyes lock and neither of us moves for a few moments, until he sets his pen down on the table. It rolls away and clatters onto the floor, but he makes no move to pick it up. I can't even be sure he's blinking, or that I am either.

I raise my hand and wiggle my fingers in something that I hope resembles a wave, but he still sits there, motionless. He's not looking away from me or bolting, though, so that's a good sign. Or at least I think it is, and that's all I have to go on right now.

He looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and I'm sure I do, too. The thought causes my lips to curve up in a smile, and I curse the bad timing. Maybe not, though, because is that the barest of smiles on his face, too? That's a million times better than a scowl or frown, anyway. Time to take the next step.

I adjust the shoulder strap of my purse and take a step toward him. He sits up straight in his chair but says nothing. It appears that the writer is at a loss for words.

"Is this chair free?" I ask, placing my hand on the back of the wooden chair beside him.

He swallows and clears his throat. "Ah, yeah. There's no one at this table but me."

I smile again and sit down, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach and how nervous I am now that I'm here. No, make that terrified.

"What are you working on?" I ask him, looking down at the pages filled with his hastily-scrawled words. I see arrows in some places connecting sentences together, and bubbles of point-form notes in others, all mixed in with the paragraphs that fill each page.

"A novel I'm writing." He's staring at me and then seems to realize it. Shifting his eyes away, he reaches for his mug and takes a drink from it.

"Can I read it sometime?" I ask. I won't be here in The Before when he's finished writing it, I know, but I'll find a way to read it from The Life-After.

"Maybe when it's a little more polished. It's a little hard to follow like this." He puts his mug down. I watch him, silent, until he speaks again. "Why are you here?"

"I have this thing with lost causes." His eyes widen and I review my words in my head. Yeah, that definitely didn't come out the way I meant it. "You're not the lost cause," I rush to add.

He grins. "I could argue that."

"Of the two of us, I think I'm the lost cause here." I feel myself starting to relax.

"No, you're not. And maybe..." he pauses, swallowing again. "Maybe we're not, either," he finishes. He reaches across the table to touch my hand and I realize that as much as my being here has caught him by surprise, he's glad I came.

I flip my hand under his so we're palm to palm. Maybe there are things he can't say, but I can feel them in his touch and see them in his energy. It's expanding now, reaching out toward me.

"Maybe we're not," I agree, my voice soft. My body tingles as our energy connects. Even though he probably can't feel it, I can tell it's affecting him, too. I see it in the way he watches me, and how his breath catches and gets a little shallower. He looks down at our hands, tracing a pattern on my palm. He keeps his eyes there long enough for me to wonder if he's having trouble looking at me.

Now is not the time to be shy, I think. He looks up again like he heard me, holding my eyes with his.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asks.