Weather Girl(43)

“My love life has been kind of a mess, too,” I say. “I thought I’d be getting married this year. I’d be deep in wedding planning right now, picking a caterer and a band and a font for our invitations.”

“I get the impression that maybe you’re glad not to be?”

“I really am. We’d barely started planning, and his parents were already putting pressure on us to start having kids.” Of course, not the reason it ended, but it didn’t make anything better.

“Do you think you want them?” he asks. “Kids?”

Normally, it would be such a personal question, one I’ve rolled my eyes at and complained about in the past. Most people don’t even ask—they just assume that of course you will procreate, so they don’t care about the if. Only the when. But I don’t mind him asking at all.

“I do,” I say. “Someday. I spend a lot of time with my brother’s kids, and I love them. But it wasn’t so much about that as it was that I couldn’t picture the wedding itself. I couldn’t make any decisions about it, and I’m pretty sure that’s because it wasn’t right. Not that something being right makes it easy, but . . .”

“It makes those hard parts a lot more manageable.”

I turn to him, propping my head up with my right arm. “Right. Exactly. My ex isn’t a bad guy. He just thought I wasn’t ‘real enough.’?” I say the words like I’m putting them in air quotes, and the ease with which I’m able to share this with Russell catches me off guard. “He told me I was too sunshine. Which, rude, using my own job against me.”

“What does that even mean, too sunshine?”

“That I’m—that I’m pretending with everyone. That I’m hiding real shit because—” I break off, shaking my head. I can’t get into the tidal wave that is my mother. Not when I’m going to see her the day after tomorrow.

We’re too much, I can hear her saying. Usually when my mother crosses my mind, I force a smile and send out a positive affirmation. But not right now. Not when I’m trying to explain to Russell that this was the reason Garrison wanted out.

I’ve locked all this darkness in a room at the end of the hallway and haven’t let anyone inside.

But for him, I crack the door. Just a little. Just for tonight.

“Because it’s harder to deal with,” I finish. A partial truth. It’s all I can give him for now.

“I don’t think you’re like that at all,” Russell says. “You’re the kind of person who makes other people feel good to be around. That’s a great thing.”

“You feel good being around me?” I ask in this paper-thin voice.

His gaze is heavy on mine, and it’s more intimate than when he had his hands on my bra. “All the time.”

It might be the loveliest thing someone’s said about me.

“I—thank you.” I swallow hard, allowing those words to sink in. All the time. I want to ask if he really means it, if he’s talking about the times I’ve let the mask slip around him, too. The times I complained about our bosses and acted like it was all hopeless. But he hasn’t seen me at my worst, on my darkest days.

And he never can.

As badly as I want to linger in his compliment, I have to change the subject. “Maybe I’ll try the whole casual-dating thing TV shows about hot twentysomethings living in the big city make look so easy.”

The spell broken, Russell readjusts on the bed, crossing his legs at the ankles. “I wish I had some great advice to give. But—” He breaks off with a grimace, runs a hand down his face. “Don’t judge me.”

“I won’t!”

“Okay.” A long exhale, and then: “I haven’t been on a date in five years.”

I just stare. “Five . . . years?”

When he laughs, it’s a disbelieving, self-conscious kind of laugh. Like even he is shocked by it. “I know. At first, it was because Liv and I had broken up, and Elodie was still a child. And then moving to a new city . . . it was all so much. Eventually, I fell into my routines, and they didn’t end up including dating. The more time passed, the scarier it seemed to start trying again.”

My brain practically short-circuits with this information. Five years. Five years since he sat across from someone in a swanky restaurant and drank overpriced cocktails, since he saw a movie with a 65 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, hoped it would at least be decent, and was frustrated by how aggressively mediocre it was.

Five years since he kissed someone goodnight at the end of an evening, blood spiked with adrenaline, pulse hammering in his throat.

“Well, that’s it,” I say, trying to erase that mental image. “We’ll get Torrance and Seth back together, and then we’ll find you your first date in five years.”

He lifts an eyebrow, like this is a ludicrous proposition. “I’m so out of practice. I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

“That’s easy. You just say, ‘Hi, Ari Abrams, you look absolutely stunning in that sling. It really brings out your eyes. Do you want to have dinner with me?’?”

I might have a fever, and this time I’m certain it’s not a side effect of the medication. I hope he knows I’m joking. That I’m not actually encouraging him to ask me out.