“Nothing says romance like two parents one floor below and three obnoxious brothers, right?”
I combed through my purse to grab a few items to get myself ready for the day. “Well, that, and baseball twin-sized sheets.”
Soren chuckled. “Works every time.”
“Or at least one time, Mr. Saving Yourself for Marriage.”
“You’re one to talk,” he jousted back, glancing toward the driver. He was on his cell phone, speaking a different language. “And I wasn’t saving myself for marriage. I was saving myself for the right one.”
“The right one?” I raked a brush through my hair, lifting my eyebrow at him.
Soren lifted his eyes. “Why am I the only hopeless romantic in this relationship?”
“Because it’s ‘hopeless,’” I fired back with a smile.
Soren was about to nudge me when he stopped. I was in the middle of brushing on a couple coats of mascara.
“My parents kind of brought us up believing that there was one right person out there for us, you know? That there was one person for everyone,” he continued, shifting. “It wasn’t like they said that around the dinner table or anything. We just saw that with the way they are together. I think we all realized we weren’t going to waste our time pretending. We’d hold out for that just right one.”
I twisted the cap on the mascara and tucked it away. “You believe that? There’s only one perfect person for each of us?” It was a beautiful idea. One I wished I believed in—but I’d never once witnessed it. Relationships, at least the romantic kind, always seemed to be more of the opposite. My dad’s leaving, my mom’s failed string of relationships that followed—it made a cynic out of the softest of souls.
“Partly, yeah”—he nodded, rolling his hand—“but I think it has more to do with what we choose to believe more than how it actually is. And for me, yeah, I choose to believe that there is one right person for me. One woman I was meant to love.”
That hardened cynic inside me started to melt. “Why?”
From the way he was looking at me, it was like he expected me to know. Or was waiting for me to figure it out. “Because that’s the way I want to love someone. Like she’s irreplaceable. Like I’d wait forever, search forever, until I got to be with her.”
My throat moved, but the ball lodged in it stayed. “Okay, I get that,” I said, my voice giving away my emotion. “And you are so getting lucky tonight.”
Soren fist pumped in celebration before reaching for me. His hand folded over my shoulder, and he tucked me into the shelter of his chest. “There. That feels right.” When he exhaled, it was like he’d been holding his breath for a while.
“Putting your arm around me?” I asked, winding my arm over his stomach and sliding closer.
His head nodded above mine. “Before, I’d get the urge to pull you close or hold you or touch you, and I had to catch myself before I did it. Now, I get the urge, and I just do it.”
His lips touched my head. Everything else touched something deeper inside me.
Closing my eyes, I imagined everything would work out between us. “It does feel right.”
With all of the days I worked late, this was one time I really could have benefitted from getting off at a normal end-of-day hour. Even for work-weary New Yorkers, I was getting off late.
I’d texted Soren earlier to let him know I wouldn’t be home until after nine, maybe ten, and apparently he’d been running late too. His coach had tacked on an extra practice, and he had to finish up a lab after that.
The meeting with the client had gone well. Better than expected. I might have lost a liter of fluid via my armpits, I was so nervous, but we walked away from the day with them still wanting me to be the face of their new campaign.
My feet were screaming as I climbed the stairs, even in my flats, so I kicked them off somewhere between the third and fourth floor and journeyed the rest of the way barefoot. Soren had told me to text him when I hit the subway so he could meet me at the stop by our apartment, but I hadn’t. He was busy enough without having to escort me to and from a subway station. Besides, the days were getting longer, and by his definition, it was still dark, since there’d been plenty of people out on the sidewalks.
Unlocking the door, I braced myself for him to be upset about me not texting him, but instead I found a quiet apartment. A couple of lights were burning, but I didn’t see or hear him until I rounded into the kitchen.
He was at the table, sitting in his favorite chair, books and notebooks spread around him. He was almost snoring he was sleeping so hard.
I’d been looking forward to seeing him tonight. I’d been really looking forward to doing more of what we’d done last night. No family within earshot, no pictures of an eight-year-old Soren holding a baseball bat over his shoulder staring at me from the walls.
But he had to be exhausted if he’d fallen asleep the way he had. With school, practice, and work, he’d barely been averaging five hours of sleep a night. He needed his rest, however he could get it.
As I headed to my area to get changed into pajamas, I noticed he was still in his practice uniform. He’d gone through two practices, kept it on to finish a lab at school, and was still in at when he’d come home?
I realized why when I checked behind his partition to find an ungodly pile of dirty laundry. He’d been too busy for laundry too.
Since I could sleep in a bit in the morning, I decided to tackle Mt. Soiled Soren. I’d been planning on spending a couple hours tonight with him anyway—maybe not doing his laundry, but it was something he needed taken care of, regardless.
Thankfully, both washers were open when I carried the first heap into the laundry room at the end of the hall. After getting those first couple of loads started, I headed back to the apartment to tackle a few other projects.
Six loads of laundry, twenty ready-to-go meals, and one spotless apartment later, I felt like I was about to fall asleep in the chair across from Soren as I rolled the last pair of his socks together.
I was trying to tuck one of his undershirts between his head and his textbook “pillow” when he jerked awake. He blinked a few times before he shot up in his chair, grabbing his phone to check the time.
“Fuck,” he grunted as he bolted out of his chair.
He didn’t realize I was beside him until his chest rammed into mine.
“You’re here.” His hands formed around my arms as he blinked the last bit of sleep out of his eyes. “Christ, I fell asleep. I’m sorry.” His neck rolled as he rubbed at the indents on his face from the textbook. “Why didn’t you text me? You didn’t walk back by yourself, did you?”
I exhaled. “The subway station is maybe a third of a mile away from here. I managed just fine.”
“Hayden—” He cut himself off, rolling his neck again. “Why didn’t you text me so I could walk with you?” His voice was more composed, his face less harsh.