My attention bounces back to him, piqued. “How’s that?
He leans forward, and now I can smell the white musk and cedar notes of his cologne. I pull the sleeves of my shirt over my wrists to hide the goosebumps that flourish across my skin. “It makes earning your smiles more worth it,” he says, his dark eyes falling to my lips. Instinctively, and before I can stop myself, I tuck my lower lip beneath my teeth. I bring the coffee cup to my lips, but it’s too late. His deep skin warms, his eyes shining with desire.
My latte went cold a while ago, but heat still spreads across my core.
Then, my phone vibrates in my back pocket and all the blood in my body rushes to my head. DO NOT ANSWER glows behind the screen. Wrapped in the embrace of Nick’s awareness, I forgot all about Jeremy. “It’s my ex,” I say, sending the call to voicemail.
“I thought he just got engaged?” Nick reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “Exactly.”
“Let me see her,” he says, nodding to the phone.
I scoff. “What?”
“Let me see the new girl,” he repeats.
Reluctantly, I unlock my phone and go looking for a picture of them together. My heart hammers behind my ribs as I slide the device over to him.
He holds it up to his face, his eyes scanning the photo.
“I mean,” he sighs, dispassionate. “She’s a’ight.”
I smirk. “Justa’ight.”
He huffs a laugh at my attempt to imitate the deep timbre of his voice. “She’s gorgeous,” I shrug. It doesn’t bother me that she’s pretty. It doesn’t even bother me that he chose her over me.
Okay.Maybe it bothers me a little bit.
What actually hurts the most is realizing how much I lost myself being with him, and how, at thirty, I’m having to learn what it’s like just to be me again…the fact that when I ask myself that question, I have no clue what the answer is.
“She’s okay,” he affirms. “But, she’s no Krystal,”
I snort a laugh. “You barely know me.”
“True,” he follows, not missing a beat, “but that only proves my point. Idon’tknow you…yet.” He smiles, and I have no choice but to smile back. “But what I do know is that your voice sounds the way home feels. I’ve already told you that when you smile, I feel like a champion, but your laugh? If your smile is a trophy, your laugh is an Olympic medal. And you’re kind. You don’t have to entertain me or anyone else here, but you do.”
He continues, and with each compliment, I feel the backs of my eyes burn with unshed tears. It feels good to be seen. What does it say about me that I settled for anything less when this man, who just met me, seems to see me so clearly? I lengthen my neck, clinging to the remnants of my confidence instead of letting him catch me in yet another vulnerable moment.
He ends by saying, “I think you should give yourself more credit.”
Once again, curiosity gets the best of me. “Why?” I ask.
His chest expands with the deep breath he takes. He shakes his head with its release. “When Marie left, I spiraled sohard,” he says, smiling at an invisible spot on the table. “Binge drinking, feeling like I could barely sleep, even though I was sleeping all the damn time, ignoring my responsibilities. I was convinced God was punishing me for something I did in a past life. Taking my son and then…” His voice trails off, catching on the emotion clogging his throat. He looks away briefly, only for a second, before turning those dark, glassy eyes right on me.
“I learned,” he says, “it’s okay to lose who you think you are if you end up finding out who you’re meant to be in the end.”
Those words hit home. I stare up at the ceiling.
“I lost the faith I thought I had and got real with God. I stopped running from grief and faced it head-on, ended up making a film that changed my life. I took accountability for the part I played in destroying my marriage, and I realized that anything lost can be found again.”
Even though his spirit stirs my soul, and his attention arrests me, his words disarming — I allow my eyes to make four with his again, this time, unmasking all the layers of protection I put up. I let him see the raw emotion living inside me.
He scans my face with earnest eyes. “Are you mourning what was, or what could have been?” He juts his chin at my phone screen. The more I look at them, the less hard of a pill the truth becomes to swallow. As much as I hate seeing them together, living the life I thought was owed to me, I don’t wish it were me in the photo. I don’twanthim anymore.
“I think I’m mourning the version of myself I abandoned to be with him. It was all for nothing in the end. And now,” I shrug, swiping the photo away. “I guess I’m trying to find her again.”
A comfortable silence falls over us as more guests fill the room and the aroma of pancakes permeates the air. “She usedto love Christmas,” I announce, a wistful smile blooming on my lips.
