Page 130 of Sunset Catchers

Our audience, Kit, Lou and Ben, marvel over the final results, pinpointing their favorite parts with ouuhs and ahhhs and a lot of “Just beautiful, Winnie,” from Kit.

I’m smiling big and proud as I lead them through the spaces, explaining how we plucked every little detail out of my head and made them tangible for future guests.

Levi stays on the sidelines while I run the tour, only supplying comments when my eyes slip toward him in a silent request to add in his own bits and pieces. I soak up these brief glimpses as much as I can. My brain wants to stock up on images of him like a bear getting ready to hibernate. I want to burn him into my retina, so even when we are hours away from each other, he’ll still be all I see.

Once we’re all gathered around the island in the big cottage, we pop bottles of sparkling wine and clink our glasses over a job marvelously well done. Kit’s words, but my sentiment also.

“Winnie, thank you so much,” Kit says cheerily. “These cottages are absolutely gorgeous, and it’s all because of you.” Levi glances dearly at the flushed tips of my tears.

“Thank you, Kit, truly. For the opportunity. For trusting me. And for providing a steady handyman.” Levi winks at me, making my heart swell with preemptive longing.

“What’s next for you?” Ben asks me.

“I’m going back to Montreal to my previous job.”

“If all goes well with these cottages, I’ll definitely need you to help when we build more,” Kit warns.

I’m feeling as bubbly as the wine over the prospect of doing all of this again.

“Trust me, they’ll rent like freshly baked blueberry muffins,” Lou reassures. We all bob our heads in agreement. Lou is an expert when it comes to everything tourism around here, so if she says the cottages will rent easily, then they will.

“I’d love that. To work with you again.” I look at my coworker turned friend turned boyfriend when I say this.

“So, what are you going to name these?” Kit has been on the hunt for the perfect name for her new rental properties.

“The Sandy Shore rental cottages,” Kit declares.

“It’s perfect,” I say, and everyone else agrees.

An hour later, only Levi and I are left in his cottage, each splayed on one end of the couch, legs tangled in the middle.

“I’m exhausted.” I yawn to prove my point.

“Let’s take it easy for the rest of the day.”

There isn’t much left to do anyway, as we are officially done with our job here. I’m not remotely close to being done with the guy on the other end of the couch, though.

“Look,” I hold my phone so he can see my screen. “Junie sent me some of the pictures she took.” Levi reaches to swipe through a bunch of them.

“She’s really talented. They’ll be perfect for the website.”

Levi had made Junie a list of pictures he needed of the spaces to put on the website. She’d spent all of Monday taking hundreds of pictures of both cottages for him, and to use on social media, which she was officially in charge of managing now. The cottages will be available to rent next week for the upcoming summer as a soft launch.

It was weird to imagine someone other than Levi and I in here. To think that other people would sit right on this couch and share a pizza while they watched a movie.

These past few weeks, we have been in our own bubble where time didn’t exist, but today, it comes rushing back in a way that unsettles me. Sure, we made some plans to make our long-distance relationship work, but it would never be this way again. Working closely together and spending all of our time with each other.

It is something to cherish: this undiluted time we had together. Pure quality moments that are now part of our story, that are part of our beginning. I stare at Levi. My boyfriend.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“How I’m happy that we got to spend all this time together,” he tells me.

“So am I,” I say.

“Wait,” he feigns some shock. “Are you going to miss me? You should be happy. You’ll have plenty of Levi-free days now.”

My chin trembles.