The Dead Romantics (94)

He held out a hand over his desk, and I took it. His was warm and calloused and I thought I had prepped myself for this sort of meeting, but at that moment I realized how woefully underprepared I actually was. Because he was alive. When so long he had been a specter that faded in and out of my life, first a ghost and then a memory and now—

Now he was standing in front of me and no matter whether he remembered me or not, he was here. The feeling of his hand in mine made me happy in a strange and comforting way.

And that sort of happiness, even bittersweet, made my heart so full it might just burst.

I squeezed his hand tightly. “Thank you for fitting me into your schedule,” I replied, smiling. “I’ve got to get to Newark, so I won’t be staying long.”

“Going somewhere?”

“Home!” I replied happily. “My brother’s getting married this weekend.”

“Congratulations! Well, then by all means, let’s get to it. Please, sit,” he said, and motioned toward the IKEA chair facing his desk, and I sank down into it. The last time I was here, I had all but begged him for another deadline extension. I had even argued that love was dead in order to write a different genre. Nothing worked.

The Swell of Endless Music would have been a damn good revenge fantasy.

But it was a better romance.

To my surprise, he had kept my apology cactus. It was sitting on his desk beside his monitor, and it was still alive. He’d made room for it, on his tidy desk where everything had its place.

I had changed so much in these last few months, and I wondered how much he’d unknowingly changed. If somewhere deep down beneath his flesh and bones there was an echo of moonlit walks in graveyards and screaming in the rain and dandelion fields and funerals.

Or were they my secrets now? I held them close either way, though not as close as I held my purse right about then.

“So, Miss Day—”

“Florence, please,” I corrected, tearing my eyes away from the cactus.

“Florence, then. Sorry,” he added. “I was just rereading Ann’s manuscript when you walked in and compiling some final notes for her. We’ll probably do a small round of edits and send it off to copyedits—it’s really quite solid already.”

“See what Ann could do with a few more months?” I joked, tongue in cheek.

He smiled softly. “You were right. And the title? The Swell of Endless Music is so lyrical and soft. It’s great. I think we might use it—where’s my manners? Would you like something to drink? I’m sure the break room has tea or burnt coffee, if you’d prefer that?”

“Battery acid at noon? Oof, I’ll have to pass.”

He grinned. “Might be for the best. Your zoom-zoom juice might backfire on the flight.”

I gave a start. “My what?”

“Oh—um, your coffee,” he corrected himself, his ears turning red with embarrassment.

We sat for an awkwardly quiet moment.

Then he cleared his throat. The redness of his ears was inching down toward his cheeks now, and he checked his watch. “Anyway, there’s a reason you wanted to meet with me?”

Yes, but I didn’t want to leave after this, and go on about my life. I wanted to stay in this uncomfortable chair as long as humanly possible, because I knew when I left, I would never be coming back again.

Dad once told me that all good things came to an end, eventually.

Even this.

I opened my purse and took out a book-shaped present wrapped in brown paper. “I wanted you to have this. As a thanks. Or—I don’t know—a get-well present? I was thinking about getting you a card, but it just felt weird to write, ‘Glad You’re Not Dead!’ on it, you know?”

He laughed—actually laughed. It was deep and rumbly. “Apparently, I was pretty close to dead for a few days. I dreamed that I was.”

My throat began to constrict. “Well, good thing it was just a dream.”

“It felt real enough,” he replied, accepting the gift. He opened it very meticulously, one edge at a time, barely tearing the paper. His eyebrows furrowed when he finally unwrapped it and read the title. Books didn’t always find success, but they found where they needed to go, like Dad had said. Ben flipped open the book to the title page and ran his fingers along the black Sharpie I used to sign it. I’d only signed a handful of books before, so I didn’t really have a signature or a certain way to sign. It was just my name, plain and simple, next to his.

He was quiet for a long moment, too long.

Oh god, had I become the weirdo who gave him a cactus and a book now? This was a terrible idea. I knew it was from the beginning. I was going to put googly eyes on all of Rose’s vibrators for ever suggesting this.

“Oh, look at the time!” I gathered my things and quickly popped to my feet. “I really have to go. Hope you enjoy the book, you know, assuming you haven’t read it, because why would I assume you’ve read it, right? No one’s read that book and, um, it’s definitely a different Florence Day and—”

“Florence,” he whispered, his voice cracking, but I was already at the door. “Wait—Florence—please. Wait.”

I stopped in the doorway, and steeled myself with a breath, and turned to face him. He was staring at me strangely. Then he was on his feet, brown eyes wide, and the way he looked at me, I could have been the ghost.