Undecided(97)



His eyebrows shoot up. “He said that? Out loud? To you?”

“Well, it was more like, bros before ho-roommates.”

Now Crosbie laughs. “Smooth.”

“I mean, I’m also leaving because I never should have moved in to begin with.”

“I was here that first day,” he reminds me. “When you realized you’d probably get to bump into me from time to time, you never really stood a chance.”

“That’s exactly what decided it.”

More silence.

“Remember when you told me that you don’t know how to balance things?” he asks eventually. “That it’s one extreme or the other? Nora Bora or…Red Corset?”

I bite the inside of my lip and nod.

“You know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“That on Halloween, we met right in the middle. That dog park, it’s halfway between here and the Frat Farm.”

My mouth opens then flaps closed, surprised. “That’s very…insightful.”

“I know. I also realized we were both in costume. You were this wild woman on the run, and I was, quite naturally, a superhero.”

“Naturally.” But my mind is whirling, zipping around frantically to pick up scattered pieces, putting together a new picture of that night. He’d been Superman, somebody’s alter ego, the side the public saw. And when we’d gotten back here the cape had come off and he’d been Crosbie and I’d been Nora, and we’d just been ourselves. And that had been more than enough.

He studies his fingernails, then glances up at me. “Do you have anymore secrets, Nora?”

I shake my head. “No. Definitely not.”

“Me either.”

Beside me the movie ends, the programming promptly switching as the Chicago New Year’s countdown begins.

“It’s eleven o’clock,” I say, startled into moving.

“Yeah. So?”

“So I told myself I was going to start this new year in a better place. Marcela’s place, specifically. Without…you know.”

“Me.”

I gesture vaguely to the whole apartment. “This.”

“You need a hand?”

“There’s only the bed frame left.”

“Come on, I’ll help you. Where does Marcela live?”

“About five minutes from Beans.”

“Okay.”

It takes four trips to get the pieces wedged into both trunks, and even then Crosbie has to use a scarf to tie his closed, since the latch won’t catch. The snow has picked up and the whole street is blanketed in white. He waits on the doorstep as I give the apartment one last once-over, turn off all the lights, and lock the door behind me.

We drive slowly through the powdery, dark streets, the fresh snow grinding under the tires. Crosbie trails me for the ten-minute drive, pulling into the adjacent space when I park at Marcela’s building.

We climb out of our cars and meet at the trunks. “This is it.”

“I figured.” He unties the scarf and scoops up the wood slats, then insists on carrying half of mine as well. “Lead the way.”

Marcela lives on the third floor of a building that qualifies as “new” in Burnham, which means it’s about fifteen years old. Her apartment is dated but spacious, and Crosbie nods his approval as we cross the threshold. “Nice.”

“This is going to be my room.” I lead him through the kitchen to a short hallway with bedrooms on opposite sides. He pauses at the door and frowns at the milk crates, the duffel bag, the mattresses I had nearly died getting here.

“This again?” he asks, arching a brow in my direction. “Square one?”

“Marcela has a wrench and a screwdriver,” I inform him. “So…maybe she’ll know how to reassemble the furniture.”

He smirks and carefully places the wood slats along the wall, away from the wood pieces on the other wall that used to be my desk. “Go get these ‘tools,’” he orders, shrugging out of his jacket. “And this time, pay attention.”

I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I whirl around and hustle into the kitchen to find the wrench and screwdriver in Marcela’s junk drawer. By the time I get back Crosbie’s got the pieces arranged on the carpeted floor, and he’s kneeling between them, looking perplexed. “What’d you do with the screws?” he asks. It takes me a second to answer; he’s wearing a black T-shirt and it’s straining across his back, his biceps broad and defined.

I shake my head to clear it of lusty thoughts. “I left them in my car. I’ll go grab them.” I turn back around and hurry out the door before he can think this through. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t positively giddy that he’s here. That he’s…trying.

I reach the car and snag the plastic bags I’d stashed the screws in, then hesitate as I study Crosbie’s car. The lock on the driver’s side door is up, and before I can talk myself out of it, I’m rooting around beneath the passenger seat until I find the gift I’d hidden there before Chrisgiving. Maybe I’ll give it to him as a thank-you for building my furniture. He’d given me something, after all. Even if I had to return it.

I get back to the apartment and join Crosbie kneeling on the floor in my room, handing him things as instructed, pretending to pay attention like I’d done the last time. “How’d your exams go?” he asks, holding a screw between his lips as he twists another one in.

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