You Deserve Each Other(89)

“I can’t even tell you how much money I would lose if I backed out of this,” Leon replies. “If I go down, you’re all going down with me.”

“Good. Because I’m going to spend the rest of the day dreaming about how I’m going to quit. I’m thinking it will be very dramatic. I’ll throw a drink in Bob’s face and say ‘Go to hell!’ and it will be amazing.”

“Everyone will applaud,” I say.

When she reaches the door, I call, “Text me info about those painting parties! Nicholas and I are going to drunk-paint with you and Vance the optometrist. Also, you guys are coming over to play Dungeons and Dragons sometime. I’ve never played before, but I feel like it will be an out-of-body experience for that nerd I live with, which I would like to witness.”

Leon looks excited. “I like Dungeons and Dragons.”

“You would, weirdo,” Brandy says, just before the door shuts behind her. Through the glass, she yells, “Just kidding! Love you! Please don’t fire me.” Then she blows us a kiss.

I leave, too, still smiling from ear to ear long after I’ve climbed into my car. Who knows, the restaurant might only last a year. But I can guarantee it’ll be a fun year. I couldn’t ask for anything better than that. For the first time in a long time, my future unfolds before me bright with promise. I have dreams and goals and I will make them all come true. I can do anything, even learn how to change a tire.

I should probably learn how to do that, actually. Tomorrow I’m going to fire up the old YouTube and figure out how to do some of the stuff I’ve supposedly known how to do for ages. I’m going to symbolically adopt an endangered tiger and recycle my aluminum cans. I’m going to pay the library a sixty-five-cent fine I’ve owed for two years. I’m going to do three push-ups.

I come home to a purple front door and no fiancé. Or boyfriend, depending on whether he still wants to marry me. I’m not sure what to call him now. He’s my friend. My partner. A selfless but complicated man who would drive seven hours because his parents asked him to, and he’s a better son than they are parents.

He texts at six thirty. Finally done. Going to go grab dinner and find my hotel. How’s your day been, Miss Backwoods Buffet?

That devious man. I’m going to kiss him so hard when he comes home.

I construct four casual, everything’s-peachy replies but delete them. They’re not the truth. The truth is this: I miss you so much. I wish you were here.

So that’s what I send him.

I’ve been awake since before three a.m. and it’s catching up. Upstairs, I pause at Nicholas’s door. He could have locked it but he didn’t. He could have shut it but he left it wide open, and I can’t help the heartache that overtakes me when I see the palm leaves on his blanket. I miss that blanket terribly. I miss our headboard, and the glow of his digital clock. I miss our bed. The piece of furniture I’ve been sleeping on has never felt like my bed. How can it? There’s no Nicholas there.

I snoop through his nightstand drawer to check if the straw wrapper bracelet is still there. It is. He’s also got the notes I’ve packed in his lunch and the popcorn necklace I made him, stashed away like a teenage boy with a crush. He’s pressed a stem of vitality-boosting myrtle between the pages of a book to preserve it forever. The tight, hibernating bud of a flower inside my chest yawns its petals wide open, taking up all the room until the pressure in my expanded rib cage leaves me airless.

Something is not right. Someone is missing. I am in knots.

I cross to my side of our bed and slide under the covers. I’ll be long gone before he returns and he’ll never know.

The bedclothes are cool and there’s no dip of weight where another body should lie, but his scent is here. My eyelids are as heavy as iron doors and I finally let them roll closed, breathing in a million memories of Nicholas.



I’m asleep when it sinks into my consciousness that I’m not alone. I open my eyes to the darkness, fuzzy-brained and not quite out of my dream yet. It’s late, after midnight. There’s a man lying next to me, in exactly the place he’s supposed to be. This is where he belongs, and yet it’s a lightning strike straight to the heart to see him here.

“What are you doing home?” I blink several times, waiting for him to disappear. I’m still dreaming.

“You missed me.”

“You came home because I missed you?”

He’s got his elbow bent on the pillow, palm under the back of his head, watching me fathomlessly. His other hand drapes across his stomach. “Yes.”

My pulse speeds up, because I’m in his room and he’s caught me. He drove home all night in the snow and the dark and found someone sleeping in his bed. This is where he belongs, but he might not say the same about whoever it is he sees when he looks at me. Which Naomi? Can he tell a difference?

He sits up, leaning over me. My vision is adjusting to the dark enough to clear the shadows from his face, and now I can see that his gaze is liquid. His lips are a soft curve. “I missed you, too,” he says, and presses those lips gently to mine.

I loop my arms around his neck and tug him closer, in case he has any ideas of retreating after one kiss. He smiles against my mouth, closes his eyes, and I melt into the feel of him against me. The kiss is a hungry, powerful force, but he breaks it so he can travel down and kiss my neck. My body reacts, breaking out into an inferno of heat, sensitizing, knowing he’s the only one who can give me what I want. Into my skin, he murmurs, “I’ve missed you everywhere.”