“I haven’t figured out how to put this,” she said at last, “so can I just spew?” After his affirming nod she embarked. “I’ve wondered why this task force job was such a flash point. It really got us both at each other.”
She paused there to allow him a space to speak, but he just showed agreement, so she proceeded. “I asked myself why. When I heard about it, I knew it was an exciting job and a big promotion. But what did I do? I hid it from you. By reflex. Why? Because I knew it created major challenges for us. Logistically, in our lifestyle, and—here comes: as a couple. There’s a concept, right? A couple. Talk about an exciting job and a big promotion.”
He held his silence, letting her roll. “That job offer pushed me to define things. Define us.” Nikki shrugged a tiny shrug. “And to define me. I don’t mean me without you. I just mean, as a test of whether I am still young enough and independent enough to make choices in my life.”
“On your own.”
She borrowed a phrase from her shrink session with Lon King. “I can’t solve my life in ten minutes in a hotel room. But, even though I don’t have all the answers, I do know a few things after this week. Like, I know we are good together. You make me laugh. You shake me out of my earnestness and task-orientation. You’re the only one I ever met who also gets bugged by missing commas.” She laughed.
“I’m your comma cop.”
“My punctuation police.”
“Did I hear good in bed?”
“Awesome in bed; are you serious?…But, as much as I feel that we belong together, the idea of taking it to the next level scared the hell out of me.”
“Wait.” He held up the jewelry case. “Are you saying you knew about this?”
“A woman knows.” Not prepared yet to bust herself for her trash can revelation, she let it go at that, which he seemed to buy. “So what did I do? I fought with you. I accused you of things.”
“You baptized me with top-shelf tequila.”
“I didn’t know what the upset was.” She churned her hands in front of her chest. “It was all this stuff kicking inside me. All the quaint little idiotic theories you always come up with started feeling like attacks, so I hit back.” She rested a hand on his knee. “When I almost lost you in the car last night, I freaked. I thought I saw you take your last breath before you went underwater. And you used it to tell me you loved me.”
A choking sob escaped, and Nikki fought to hold it together. “Rook, I couldn’t picture myself without you. And reflecting on it now, I’m seeing what I was fighting with all week wasn’t you. It was the fear of losing my independence. I know it may sound selfish and indulgent—even a bit Self-Help section—but I need to be true to myself. You know, even in a relationship—no, especially in a relationship—I need to have that independence for it to be healthy. Does that make sense to you?”
He swayed a few inches side to side, a writer choosing his words. “Well, Nikki, may I make it short and sweet?” After she wiped a tear, he continued, “It so happens that this independent woman you are describing is the one I love.”
In the last hour of the day, at the end of a dark week, Nikki could swear she saw a rainbow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see if you feel that way when you hear about my new job.”
Points for Rook—he didn’t blink, didn’t falter. “Please,” he said, and took a long pull on his white burgundy, waiting.
“It’s going to mean a lot of long hours, extra responsibility, days and nights apart, broken plans more common than not. It’s going to be a ballbuster.”
“So you you’re on the task force. Congratulations.”
“No, I turned it down.”
“OK, now you’re just fucking with me.”
She laughed. “And you just didn’t, with the ring?”
He lifted his glass to her. “Touché.”
“They offered it to me, that’s why they called me there. I said thank-you, but no, thank-you.”