“I can.”
“What?”
“I found out on the way to the airport. Kedar said I had a few more weeks to work from home. And he’s hoping he can get me more time than that. But I still needed to come home for Laura, and I was scared to spend more time with you. I knew I was going to get more and more attached and then if I had to go, it would break me.”
“You’ve already broken me,” he said softly. “I still want this.”
“What if I have to leave again?”
“Then we’d get married.” He smiled at my raw shock. “I know Lisette joked about it, but we could. Eventually. In a few months. And if you can’t get a job there, I could always move down here.”
“You’d move here?” I looked around at the New York street, the fluorescent lobby lights.
“I’m not saying we get engaged right now, but I did the math, and I figured we’ve spent about fifty hours together, with all the improv practices, and hiking—I mean if, let’s say we were going on a date for two hours a week, then that would be like we’d already gone on twenty-five dates. That’s not a completely crazy amount of time to be sure you want to marry someone.”
“That’s fascinating math.”
“I worked it out on a cocktail napkin on the plane.”
“I may not be able to have kids. I’m thirty-seven. I don’t even know if I even could.”
“I don’t know if I want kids. But we’d figure it out.”
My eyes filled with tears. “You can’t be this perfect.”
“I’m divorced, I have an impossible mother, and I barely had money to fly here. I am not perfect. I just want to be perfect for you.”
I put my arms around him, and he held me tight, pulling me against him so we were pressed together. I felt a bubble of happiness growing again, and this time it didn’t feel like it waswaiting to pop. It kept growing bigger and bigger, until it felt like it could get so big that it reached outside of us, encompassing everyone around us, too.
It hit me that Laura was upstairs, and that what Paul had just done for me was exactly what Nick hadn’t been willing to do for Laura. I wanted to take Paul upstairs, but I was scared that it would make her sad. Paul had made a grand gesture, and her ex-husband hadn’t.
But I was trying to trust her. She wanted the best for me. And she would be annoyed if I didn’t give her a chance to look him over.
“You should come up and meet my sister.”
“Are you sure? It’s late.”
“She’ll give me a hard time if you don’t come upstairs. Where were you planning on staying?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I figured I’d get a hotel or sleep at the airport. I need to leave in a couple of days to do school prep. I just wanted to see you.”
“Well, if you want to spend the night, you may have to stay in my bedroom because Laura and Hannah have the sofa right now.”
“I think I could manage that.”
I ledPaul quietly into the apartment, since Hannah was still asleep. Laura sat waiting for us at the dining table, her arms folded.
“This is Paul,” I said quietly, trying not to a grin like a goofy teenager presenting my prom date to my parents. Paul nodded politely, glancing around at my bookcases and the sleeping figure in the next room.
“Hi,” he whispered, putting out a hand.
Laura shook it, her expression amused. “Hi Paul,” she said. “I’m Laura, Abby’s sister. You in town to catch a Yankee’s game, or…?”
He grinned. “No, I uh…I wanted to see Abby. To talk.”
Laura looked at me, and then at him. “He’s spending the night?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll sneak him out before Hannah wakes up in the morning.”
