But maybe that’s okay.
Maybe I haven’t had to think about it—I’ve chosen it, little by little, along the way. I’ve chosen working at the Edgy Envelope, chosen new paths for my photography to connect me to people and capture their stories. I’ve chosen to cultivate friendships, spend time with my family, make myself a part of what I’d missed.
Maybe I’ve been choosing what I want all this time, since I came home and ran right into Christopher, and now that it’s here before me—the life that reflects those choices—I’m already where I was worried I would never get to.
My gears turn as I think about what comes next. I could spend a month at Mom and Dad’s, save up for a deposit on a tiny studio somewhere. Or I could stay with Christopher.
No. That would be too fast. Too soon.
Even though I know I’d love it. Even though I know we’d give each other a disgusting amount of pleasure and comfort. We’d laugh and argue and tease and make love—
Love.
That’s what it comes down to. What I want, what I’ve chosen, is what I love—who I love. And one of those people is right down the hall, sleeping.
At least, he was.
I catch movement in the kitchen that I know is Christopher, broad and solid, dark bedhead waves sticking up. I smile, tugging off my headphones, prepared to call his name and say good morning.
But before I can, Christopher says to someone I can’t see, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I frown. He’s speaking quietly, but his voice echoes down the hall from the kitchen to the studio. Who is he talking to?
Jamie’s voice answers him. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I’m . . . surprised to see you. I didn’t think . . .” A heavy sigh. “I don’t know what I thought, and I don’t know what to make of you being here. I thought you were going to fix things with her, to make peace. That’s all we asked for.”
That’s all we asked for?
My ears start to ring. I know I should make my presence known. I know I’m eavesdropping. But I’m like an animal in the field, staring down the barrel of a hunter’s gun, frozen, stunned.
Someone asked Christopher to “fix things”? Why did he never say? Why does it sound like some grand arrangement was made to deal with me and the complications I apparently presented?
And why does it feel like I’m going to throw up?
I whimper, a sob climbing up my throat, tears stinging my eyes, but then I stop myself, shaking my head.
No. I won’t do this. I won’t skip ten steps and assume the worst. I won’t take a fragment of a conversation and fill it in with all my fears and insecurities.
I’m going to do what hasn’t been easy but has made a way for Christopher and me, cleared a path for us to finally live in the present, not twisted up in our past.
I’m going to communicate like a goddamn adult.
Once my ears stop ringing. And I can breathe properly.
I’m so focused on calming myself, I don’t hear what they continue saying down the hall, but I don’t want to.
I don’t want to hear Christopher explain and defend himself.
I don’t need proof of my belief that he cares for me deeply, that it wasn’t whatever plea my family, maybe even our friends, brought to him, that made Christopher’s heart see my hurt—it was my honesty, my truth, and his, too, that allowed us to truly see and choose each other.
We’re the ones who chose this.
And I choose to trust him. Which is why, now that my lungs work properly and my ears don’t sound like tiny foghorns are blasting inside them, I toss aside my laptop and headphones, wrench open the studio door, and march straight down the hallway toward the person who needs to hear that.
? THIRTY-EIGHT ?
Christopher
Jamie and I stand at odds for the first time in our friendship, and I hate nearly everything about it. It’s too damn early. I woke up to an empty bed without Kate. I’m starving for her and for a solid meal after having had no appetite last night after my migraine and not enough time with my hands and mouth on her, making her come.
The one redeeming part of this highly unpleasant moment is that Jamie’s grilling me because he feels responsible for how his request to sort things out with Kate could hurt the woman I love, and for that, I can’t fault him.
I just really want him to believe me and trust me.
“Jamie.” I take a slow deep breath. “I acknowledge that I made a commitment to smooth things over with Kate at your and Bill’s request, hell, even for poor lovesick Nick’s sake, but the farthest that got me was a few bruised toes at Tacos and Tangos, and a decision to keep my distance from her, which I clearly sucked at, given I lasted a week before I came around for game night and couldn’t leave her alone. That’s what led to . . . everything changing.
“Things changed when Kate told me how I’d hurt her. What she said wrecked me, and I swore to myself and her that I’d fix that. What came from that, where I am now, that’s the result. What you’re seeing, my being here, is born out of something that—no offense—has nothing to do with anyone but the two of us. Just please believe me when I say I would sooner die than ever willfully hurt Kate. She’s safe with me.”
Jamie exhales heavily and rubs the bridge of his nose. “God, I’m glad to hear that.”
“Do you believe me?”
He looks at me like I just asked if bananas are grown on Mars. “Of course I do. I just couldn’t not say something. If, even indirectly, accidentally, what I asked of you led to Bea’s sister being hurt—”
“You don’t need to explain. It means a lot to me that you care so much about her, that you’d come to me and make sure she’s safe.”
I offer my hand. Jamie takes it. And like always, we offer each other a bracing, backslapping hug.
“Petruchio.”
My head whips toward the sound of Kate’s voice calling my name as she storms down the hall. My gaze skips past her to the open studio door, and the blood in my veins turns to ice. What did she hear? What has she made of it?
Kate tips her head to Jamie, says, “Morning,” then grabs my hand, hard and tight, and just keeps walking. I spin, following her as she tugs me down the hallway toward her room.
“Kate, I don’t know what you heard—”
“Hush.” She shoves open her bedroom door, rounds on me, gets a good fistful of my shirt, and yanks me down for a hard, bruising kiss. “I don’t need a word of explanation,” she says against my mouth. “I trust you, whatever it is. I believe you.”
They’re words I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear, how desperately I needed to know she meant.
“Kate,” I whisper brokenly, lifting her up, wrapping her legs around my waist, holding her so tight. “Listen to me.”
She kisses my cheek, my temple. “I’m listening.”
“Your family loves you. So much that they called me on my bullshit after I was an ass at Thanksgiving and told me to knock it off. As you can imagine, I didn’t take that particularly well.”
“Christopher, I told you, I don’t need—”
“I know you don’t. But I need.” Searching her eyes, I tell her, “I decided I’d keep my distance, let us cool off, wait you out until you left. But then you didn’t leave, and you broke my heart when you showed me how much I’d hurt you. I have never been so glad that I bought a bottle of Irish whiskey and that you drank a quarter of it, that I held you and put you to bed and you told me the drunken truth. But I’m even more grateful that now we don’t need outside forces or liquid courage to help us face our truth and be honest. Because, yes, it’s been messy, but this is what we have done since that night—we have been trying so damn hard to talk to each other, to see and understand each other, and I don’t want that to stop.”