Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(51)

“She keeps hedging,” he’d said, “so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, I get it. Her dad almost died, and he’s still not doing great. She wants to focus on him. I really, really get it.”

Theo nodded. “Of course you get it.”

“But she has the luxury of not thinking about work yet. Her family is rich, or rich enough, anyway. I have to earn, and I can’t even think about looking for real work unless I know where we’re going to settle. Or even if she’s settling with me.”

“Maybe this is a good thing, E. Maybe you need a breather. You two were moving fast, and if you crash, you’re going to explode.”

Both Jordan and Eli stared at him, and he realized, after a beat, that he was talking about himself, too.

And then Jordan had said, rolling his eyes, “Dad. When you caught the girl, you were supposed to keep her!”

And Eli had smacked him and mussed his hair.

Laughing, Theo replied, “I’m okay, boys. I was fine by myself before. I’ll get over this and be fine again.”

“You weren’t fine before, Dad. That’s why we sent you off to find her in the first place. You were so not okay you creeped us out! And if you ask me, she was perfect for you. Watching you two at La Chanteuse? Be still my heart! You needed a parental advisory! There were practically fairies and stardust circling your head whenever you were with her—and I wasn’t even here for when things got really serious.”

His chest felt squeezed and sore. “Not helping, Jordan. And I guess things never did get really serious. I was wrong about that.”

“Pffft. It was serious. She’s just an idiot. And so are you. You know what I think? Heterosexuals are weird about love. Just OH MY GOD seriously. You find it, you have it, this miracle, and then you toss it away like it’s nothing. It’s not nothing. Love is not disposable. It’s something you fight for. It’s something you cling to even when literally every other possible choice would be easier.”

Theo cocked his head. His kid was amazing. Even Eli was gaping at him like the Oracle had spoken. But fighting was a two-way deal. Fighting alone was just fighting oneself.

“Tell her that, son.”

“You need to hear it, too! You walked away? You walked away? How is that fighting? That’s the opposite of fighting!”

He was smart, but he was young, and he’d experienced little yet of the kind of love they were talking about. “Okay, Jordan. That’ll do. It’s more complicated than you’re making it out. I can’t force a woman to love me.”

Jordan sighed heavily and crossed his arms. “Weird, I’m telling you. You people do not get it at all.”



oOo



Two days later, Theo let himself into Hunter Anders’ apartment. He’d accompanied his sons to the airport. They’d had an early lunch in the terminal, and he’d seen them off just before they went to the security checkpoint.

Eli and Jordan were gone.

And now he was alone in Paris for the first time since May. Even though he’d often been in this apartment alone, it seemed to echo now in a new way. In May, he’d been filled with a fresh vigor—more than half a year in Paris, the luxury to write without worrying about exams and essays and faculty meetings and student advising. Half a year to be nothing but a writer. It had been a nearly incomprehensible gift.

Now, it was days from September, and he’d made almost no words of note. What he had instead was a raw heart and a drinking problem.

He looked down at the bottle of bourbon he’d picked up on his way to the apartment. He knew his drinking was a problem. If he were honest with himself, he’d known it for weeks, at least. Since the Sunday morning in Avignon. He wasn’t ready to do anything about it, though. Right now, it was self-medication, and he needed it.

One problem at a time.

He was alone with himself. Alone with his memories. Alone with the bottle. If he sat here in the apartment and did nothing but drink, he’d be dead before Halloween. He needed his words. He had to find his words.

He took the bottle to Hunter’s elaborate bar and poured a crystal glass full. At least he wasn’t drinking straight out of the bottle yet. Then he went to the table by the window with the best view of the Eiffel Tower, where his Mac had sat unopened for days—weeks, now. The only reason there wasn’t a coating of dust over the silver cover was Hunter’s maid service.

He opened it.

On the desktop was an icon for a Word file he’d titled “Maggie in Paris.” He opened that. The same five thousand crap words that had been sitting there unaltered for weeks glared back at him.

While he downed a long swallow of bourbon, he slid his finger across the glide pad and tapped the icon to open a new document.

And then he sat there, an empty expanse of white nearly filling the screen before him.

What could he say about his honeymoon with Maggie, here in this city of light, of lovers? What had it felt like to love her as completely as he had in those days, before children, before mortgages, before cancer? He couldn’t remember. He could remember the way he’d loved her at the end, the way that love had felt. He could see that love, like seeing a snapshot turning yellow around the edges and remembering the warmth and happiness of the captured moment. And the pain, too.

But what he felt most keenly now, what he saw in his head constantly, was his love for Carmen. A steady presence, unless or until he drank his head dark, was the crystal-clear memory of that Sunday morning in Avignon, waking up alone but knowing with a certainty—mistaken as it was—that he was not alone, that he had Carmen. The balcony doors had been open, and he’d heard the country sounds outside. He could smell the lavender, ready for harvest. She had smelled of lavender the evening before. Even in the bath, her hair had been thick with the sharply sweet fragrance, and when he’d released her hair from its band and let it fall over her shoulders, he’d tangled his hands in it and breathed deep.