The rain kept up, and Sam didn't come by Wednesday. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about it. An excuse to put off talking about what nearly happened, but, he was avoiding her too then. At the very least, things were better between her and Ruth. They had a big breakfast the next morning; pancakes, fruit, omelettes - it was too much. And neither of them did any kind of work.

Ruth helped her sort out the rest of the donation boxes, and told her stories she'd narrowly forgotten. When it came time to go through the baby clothes Ruth kept snuggling them and sighing about what a sweet baby she'd been. Noisier than her cousin but not in a bad way, just very animated. Andy almost had the courage to ask about Claire, but wasn't ready, in the end. So they had a nice day. An easy day.

When she went into her room for the night she checked her phone to discover that Sam had texted her. But the smile didn't last long.

Going to Toronto for a couple of days, tie up some loose ends at work. Hope things are good.

She felt her stomach drop a couple of levels and she rolled onto her back, frowning at her ceiling. 'Hope things are good'. There's no question to answer there. There's no semblance of 'hey, so we almost kissed and I'm wondering how you feel about that'. She didn't answer him. He probably didn't expect her to.

"He's got to go over his debrief again." Ruth said when she told Andy Thursday over breakfast. "He'll probably be back for Sunday dinner."

Andy pushed the eggs around her plate and nodded thoughtfully, trying not to give her grandmother any kind of read on her expression. Why would Andy care, it's just a few days. They're just friends. No big deal.

But still her grandmother's eyes lingered.

"The time is right anyway, it's raining. Not much he could do here."

That one gets on Andy's nerves. She shoots Ruth that expresses that she's not impressed with this narrative. She catches Ruth smirk as she turns away.

And that's Thursday. Quiet, wet, a little lonely as Ruth does seclude herself to her desk for a while, leaving Andy on her own. She goes outside for a while - stares at Sam's immaculate bench and sees that everything is safe from the water. She stares at their nearly finished greenhouse and thinks he'll only need a couple more days. The design he picked, it wasn't complicated. She could only hope that Ruth could make up enough jobs that he came by so often. She wasn't really sure now was the time for distance. The distance they had now was driving her insane. She needed to know what might have happened. If he wanted it to. Her thoughts kept leading her there.

She glanced at the tarp covering something underneath the bench and hurried through the rain to see what it was. Paint and primer.

So she spent a couple of hours finishing painting the shutters on the porch. They were covered anyhow.

She thinks of what to say.

Okay. Everything's good here. Drive safe.

She doesn't hear back.

Friday morning was a little different. Ruth woke her up and told her to throw some wool socks and a sweater on and meet her in the gazebo. And she did.

Still in her plaid pyjama pants, she threw on some gum boots and walked across the muddy grass to the gazebo. The rain was falling a little harder today, but Ruth was waiting there with the scrabble board and the tea pot, prepared for the cold.

"Ambivalent." Andy said, laying down her tiles while Ruth watched to see how many points she acquired. "Ha! Double word score."

"You've certainly gotten good at this." Ruth grumbled, tallying the new scores, Andy pushing ahead in the lead.

"I've learned some new words since I was ten."

"Well you're a sophisticated lady now. All that college learnin'." Ruth said, watching Andy chuckle and draw new letters from the bag.

Ruth waited until Andy was done shuffling things around and met her eye to smile, and lay down her next word.

"Secretive." She said poignantly, making sure Andy knew she was being spoken to.

Andy arched her eyebrow, daring her grandmother to say what was on her mind. She looked back down at her own plaque and then to the board a couple of times, before plucking up the tiles she wanted to use.

"Nosey."

"Oh very clever dear." Ruth chuckled, loving how she slowly wound Andy up.

"You started it."

"I'm just playing the game." She feigned, looking at her notepad again, trying not to grin.

After a couple more rounds the game drew to a close, Ruth having won out in the end.

They stayed outside in the gazebo since the tea was still hot and eventually, Ruth couldn't hold her tongue anymore.

"You miss him." She said, without accusation.

"I don't."

"You do. You got used to him being here." She said softly, raising her cup to her mouth, hoping Andy might jump in.

"Maybe." Andy admitted. "A little."

Andy pulled a loose thread in her cable knit sweater and wrapped it around her finger, then snapped it when she knew it couldn't hold.

"You care about him."

Andy didn't say anything this time. She just stared at the broken thread and shook it onto the floor.

"It makes sense. Handsome young man comes around every day. He's nice, and smart, and he's a good listener. No one blames you Ducky. I'd think you were crazy not to. Or gay,"

Andy sputters a laugh at her grandmothers abrupt statement. Ruth laughs with her.

"But?"

"What do you mean?"

"It felt like there was a 'but' coming."

Ruth sighed and looked off into the trees, wondering if she could say it so it made sense to her. Just - don't rush into anything. You have all the time in the world. You're at different places in your lives. None of those seemed like the right thing to tell her, no matter how true.

"No, darling. No but. He is all those things. And you're not so bad yourself. Smart, kind, thoughtful, witty - which you get from me. You're becoming just the young woman I imagined you'd be."

Andy moved from her seat across the board and shared the bench seat with Ruth, leaning into her side.

"I just want you to be happy, as well. You deserve a life of happiness, Love."

"Thanks Gran."

The weekend passes and she found her fingers hovering over the keys of her phone, trying to sort out what to send him. Ask him where he is? How he's doing? Why he's not back yet? If she'll see him Sunday?

She ran over it in her mind again and again, and decided to send nothing. He said he'd be back in a couple of days. It was now day five.

He wasn't there for Sunday dinner, but Ruth doesn't seem surprised. Andy stood in as sous chef and diced vegetables for the salad. Andy wondered if he's been talking to her. If this is normal for him.

Someone who can spend weeks or even months away from his life in the city, must not get attached.

"Andy?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you alright?" Ruth asked, rubbing her hands with the dish cloth as she finished washing the dishes after their traditional Sunday dinner.

Andy had been looking out the window at the driveway for a few minutes, not noticing that she'd been lost in thought for so long.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She turned around, but stayed where she was, leaning back, arms folded over her chest.

Ruth watched for a minute longer before ridding her hands of the towel and placing her hands on her hips.

"I've been thinking." She announced ,recapturing Andy's attention. "You should call your dad."

Andy shook her head emphatically and raised her hands to her face, hiding for just a moment.

"No. No way. I don't plan on talking to him for quite some time." Andy ground out.

A thick tension began winding its way around the argument Ruth wanted to provide and she was forced to swallow them. She took Andy's determination with a grain of salt and eased off.

"Alright, okay. It's your decision. But I know he misses you. And I know there's a long conversation that you two have to have."

Ruth kissed her forehead and patted her shoulder. Just as Andy placed her hand over her grandmothers, Ruth moved away, out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving her alone to think about what she'd be going back to when the summer ended.

Tuesday morning, the day that marked a week since she last saw him, she decided to go for a long run. Ten kilometres she ran, down to the end of Ruth's road and back. There are very few other houses as far out as hers, but when she passed a long driveway every so often she thought about she hadn't spent much time away from the house other than these runs. It had been a long time since she just had a day to herself. Drove around, did some window shopping.

So as she entered the house, she yelled out that she was going out, and Ruth offered the car like Andy knew she would.

She showered away the rain and sweat and changed into clean leggings, a sweater and her puffy black vest. Once she slipped on her rain boots she grabbed the grocery list in progress off of the fridge door and was out of the house seconds later.

The drive into town felt a lot longer without someone next to her, and the radio's crackle was dull company.

But she kept it on while a raging Mumford and Son's banjo finished and decided caffeine was what she needed before her day could start.

She pulled over into a strip mall parking lot, and heaved a sigh when she cut the engine.

The line was long and she could see it backed up to the doors. But she continued on, because now that she'd promised her body the fix, she needed it. She pulled open the doors and was met with overwhelming amount of heat from all the bodies packed into the shop. Andy pushed herself onto her tiptoes to count how many people were in front of her and rocked back with a groan.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw no texts or calls, of course, and put it back in.

And then a roar of a laugh came from the pickup counter and most people in the line took a quick glance. Andy took more than a glance.

A balding man stood there laughing with his hand on a friends shoulder. He barely even turned and she knew who that friend was. His hair done like it always is, a deep red shirt under his black jacket... It was Sam.

She looked away and tried to figure out the best course of action. If they both got their drinks now, he'd definitely see her on his way out. And she didn't want him to. She felt a little overwhelmed. It was one thing when he wasn't texting or calling and she could pretend he was really busy, that work was keeping him tied up.

But he was back. She didn't know for how long. And she hated sounding like a fifteen year old girl crying to her friends about how he didn't call when he said he would.

She was just deciding to turn around and get out of there when she made the mistake of glancing at them again, and saw Sam staring right at her.

It was a split second decision, and she turned around and kept on walking till she got to the car. He didn't go after her, so she just sat in the driver's seat for a moment to think. She just needed a moment.

The shrill ring of her cell phone made her jump, and she pulled it out of her pocket without checking the ID.

"Hello?" She said in a shakier voice than she would have liked.

"Hey." Came Sam's rougher voice through the receiver.

She sucked in a breath, cursing herself and taking a look at the shop. She didn't know what to say to him really. Pouting about things didn't seem the smart thing to do. Letting him know she was upset, would be too revealing. What she wanted was for him to come back, come to the house and have something to tell her, one way or the other. But he lied, and now that couldn't happen.

There was a pause of silence and she heard nothing on his end but steady breathing. She reclined her seat, dramatically and closed her eyes.

"You said you were away." She settled on, saying it quietly but passively.

"I was."

She wished he'd elaborate.

"And were you going to tell me you were back?"

"Of course I was, it's - I only got back a couple of days ago." He insisted, taking on a new tone from the casual one he usually embodied.

"Well it kind of feels like you've been avoiding me."

"Avoiding you?!" She heard him laugh.

"Yes!"

"Andy, you're the one who just ran out of a coffee shop. Why would I be avoiding you?"

Andy laughed humourlessly though she knew he didn't really hear.

"Sam... You know why." She said quietly again, dismissing his teases.

There were some things she needed to know before they slipped back into the routine. She just needed to know.

"I'm not. I just needed a little time. Plus, it's been raining." He said slowly, as if she might not have noticed the drops on her windshield.

"At the expense of sounding like a fourteen year old, you could've at least sent me a text."

She wishes he was in the car with her, so she could see him, read him. Maybe figure out if she was making things worse. So be it - she guessed. At least she'd know one way or the other.

"I know, I'm sorry. I just wanted some..."

"Time?"

"Yeah."

"Well here's the thing. Time and space? It doesn't really work for me. It doesn't involve me doing anything."

She heard him chuckle on the other end.

"You over think things, you know that?"

"Yeah? Pfft. Well, you know, you... under think things."

"Good one." He laughed.

She knew that he was smiling wherever he was calling from.

"Can I come by tomorrow?" He asked, pulling her out of her thoughts of his mouth.

"Even if it's raining?"

"Even if it's raining."

"Sure."

"And McNally?"

"Yep?"

"Check the hood of the car."

With that, the call cut out and Andy was left confused, staring at her phone, and then moving quickly to bring her seat back up.

Sitting on the edge of the hood, was a hot cup of coffee.