“I don’t know why,” October said, “but this song reminds me of you.”

The song started out with this sprinkly high hat/kick drum combo that was fast but slowly brooding at the same time. Then the first two lines come in, and they aren’t sung so much as they’re murmured with an aloofness that felt too close to home.

Sorrow found me when I was young.

Sorrow waited, sorrow won.

A few seconds later the baritone singer starts repeating the line I don’t wanna get over you in a way that seemed more like foreshadowing than a sign.

Listening to the song made me feel like October understood something crucial about me, something that lived deep inside my core, something she couldn’t possibly know. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. The fact that she played the song, and I understood why she played it, and perhaps she understood why she played it.

Still, it all seemed too fantastic. Too risky. And I didn’t take risks.

Because where could this possibly go? And if I blew it, then what? I’d be out of a job and an apartment, not to mention potentially brokenhearted to the point of no return.

I don’t wanna get over you.

I should have established boundaries right then. Refused to engage with her beyond our professional relationship. That’s what I’d sworn to do before she came over. Nothing is going to happen between us, I told myself. I’m her employee. She has a boyfriend. She’s successful and extraordinary and I hate myself. This could never work.

I don’t wanna get over you.

She put her hand on top of mine, stared hard at me, and sighed. “This won’t affect our work, I promise. I just had to get it off my chest. You can forget we had this conversation if that feels like what you need to do.”

She came around to the other side of the counter and hugged me. It was a deliberate hug: sincere, innocent, full of heart. Then she put her hood back up and walked to the door.

The dialogue in my head went like this: Don’t say another word. Let her go.

Then I remembered I was supposed to be a new and improved Joe Harper, and I tried to imagine what Cal would say if he were there to give me advice.

“Go for it, Harp.”

Maybe it was the tequila. Maybe it was something else. A tiny burst of courage? My authentic self taking over? My truth? My destiny?

Even if I wanted to forget the conversation, I knew I never would.

“Hey,” I said.

October turned around, one foot already out the door.

“Do you want to hang out tomorrow night?” I mumbled. “Maybe we could go for dinner or something?”

I could see a subtle smile like the crest of a wave trying to break across her face. She bit her lip to hold it back and nodded.

“Cool,” I said.

“Cool.”

SIX.

When I was a kid, I thought trees were gods. It’s hard not to when the forests that surround your town are full of ancient redwoods that stretch like divine monuments so far into the sky you can’t tell where the canopies of the trees end and the heavens begin.