He sighs. “I know. You’re inevitable.”

I don’t know quite what he means by that, but now that I’ve got him good and trapped I’m going to make him read my letter and restore the balance. “Here.” I wave the lilac paper. “This is for you.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, come on. It won’t bite.”

I reach up on tiptoe, he reaches down, and in that flicker of brief contact with both our hands on the paper, his eyes meet mine and something very like fear seizes them. But when he blinks, it’s gone.

The base of the tree has a springy cushion of moss around it, which I decide to plant myself down on while awaiting my I forgive you, you are thus absolved.

Suppressing the urge to stare at him with laser eyes while he reads is killing me, especially given that he’s reading about something private. My instinct is to distract him from this new information he’s likely going to use to make fun of me by chattering, lessening the impact, toning it down into nothing at all, just having a laugh. As if there are several levels at which one could process the letter, and if I can bring him down to the shallowest tier he’ll know it, but he’ll know it less. Which probably does not make sense.

I have to look.

He’s still reading, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s frowning. This isn’t one of his signature frowns, so I don’t know how to decipher it. I review my selection of modes, slamming the one that says panic.

Oh god! Why didn’t I share a less personal story? I’ve got loads of embarrassing stories in me, high-resolution reels that play behind my eyes every time I lie down to sleep. I could have told him about the time I set off a firework upside down. Or the time I bought a hot dog at Chickamauga Lake and got attacked by a seagull. Or when I strangled myself with a dress that didn’t fit in a dressing room at Target and wore myself out trying to wrench myself free for close to an hour before another lady helped me pull the ripped dress over my head and, while doing so, commented that I wasn’t wearing the right underwear for that kind of dress.

The nose of a purple airplane swats me on the forehead. I blink.

“Sorry.”

New writing in black ink spreads over one of the airplane’s wings. I unfold it. He wrote back?

He wrote back.

 AU?

 The enchiladas were good. Thank you.

That’s all he has to say? I squint up at him. “You have a pen on you?”

“I always have a pen on me.” His arm dangles over the edge, pen slipping from his fingers, letting it tumble down into my lap. Well, all right then.

 AU = Alternate universe, I write back.

He reads it, then responds aloud, “What’s it like?”

“My coffee shop?”

“Yeah.”

I can’t get a read on whether he’s only asking for details so he can laugh at them, or if he’s sincerely curious. Not that it matters. It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me.

I close my eyes to visualize my café, but for a split second, I see the cabin loft. I think it’s safe now to admit that I low-key, secretly, sort of care what he thinks. I think maybe he cares what I think about him, too. And isn’t that something?

“What the café looks like on the outside is hazy, but there’s a big pink neon sign,” I tell him, eyes still closed. In my mind, I push open the door. “The door chimes when you open it. A wave of cool air hits you, like when you’ve been out in the rain and walk into an air-conditioned building. It smells like cocoa powder and cinnamon.”

“Do you make donuts there?”

“Yes.” I feel myself smile. “The best anyone’s ever had.”

“That’s true in this universe, too.”

It is true that I crave that validation. It is also true that praise makes me squirm. “The floor is all shiny aqua tiles that go halfway up the walls. The rest of the walls are pale, pale purple and decorated with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Succulents in hanging baskets. Travel posters of fictional lands. There are tons of big, leafy green plants everywhere. I kill every plant I touch in real life, but here I have a green thumb.” I open one eye, chancing a peek up at Wesley. He’s writing on the paper, a small smile creeping over his face. One corner of his mouth hooks back slightly, unconsciously. I talk faster.

“There are red vinyl booths and a black countertop with bar stools. An old-fashioned cash register. A jukebox. Fairy lights. A display case full of donuts.”

“What kind?” he interrupts.

I’m a pastry junkie; I could write sonnets about what kind. “Cinnamon sugar, chocolate strawberry mousse, caramel and peanut long johns. Fudge brownie with powdered sugar.”

“Nice.”

“Cinnamon rolls,” I go on. As I talk, the talking becomes easier, and why should this embarrass me, anyway? My café is spectacular. “Bear claws. Beignets. Pumpkin and cream cheese. Butterscotch pralines. Mexican hot chocolate. Donuts with every filling imaginable: raspberry, apple, lemon curd, blueberry.” I’m making myself hungry. “There’s an old rotary phone on the counter that flashes red when it’s time to go back to the real world. Beside it sits a frosted cake stand especially for Lamington donuts. Half are covered in traditional coconut, the other half chopped hazelnuts.” I realize I’m gesturing, as if he can see what I’m pointing at, and that Wesley’s smile has gotten bigger.

My thoughts run into each other, a thirty-car pileup, totally arrested by that smile.

I have seen Wesley mildly amused, but I have never seen him enjoying. I react with a powerful expanding of pressure in my chest: my body is double-gravity heavy, immobile, never to move again. But my heart is a balloon.