He stops dead, arms melodramatically flailing as if he almost dive-bombed. “Hey, what?”
I wrap an arm around the porch column, leaning. Where has this boy been? Good lord! “I’m glad you didn’t get hit by a train today.”
His laugh is a sharp arrow slung upward into the night sky. It gets stuck up there, morphing into a glittering star. “Hey, Romina!”
His laughter is contagious, overtaking me. “Hey, what?”
Even from half a block away, I can still see that grin shining in the darkness. “Me, too!”
NOW
“Look up,” I say. “You’re on a date with me.”
He searches in the wrong direction, then turns, spotting me. I run to the road—a car streaks by, and in a blink, there stands Alex right on the other side, arms spread. I jump into them, grinning as he spins. “Hi.”
My “Hi” echoes from the phone in his palm. He’s got me listed asSweetheartin his contacts.
Something inside of me that snapped in half long ago burns bright as it heals itself, stronger than ever before, like a bone after a break. I wonder if he notices. If he can see all of my emotions pouring out of me, painting the air.
He loads my groceries into his truck. “You headed home?”
I stare at him as he waits patiently for an answer, like he has all the time in the world to stand here and listen to whatever I’mabout to say. I notice that his shirt features a flower wearing a cowboy hat, which saysWHAT IN CARNATION, and it makes me weak in the knees.
“What if you took me home with you instead?”
Then, because it’s an important distinction to make: “Inside your house, I mean. I just grabbed dinner for us, if you want to eat together.”
He does a double take, fishing through one of my bags for the Mountain Dew he knows is for him. “Yes.” His voice deepens so instantly that I’d laugh if I weren’t nervous. But good nervous. Spectacularly good. “Yes,” he repeats. “I’dlovethat.”
In light of a smile like that, anything is easy. I would do anything to see that smile.
I gulp a deep breath. “I’m all-in. I want you to know that I’m all-in, that I’m obsessed with you, that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. You still wanna take that next step with me?”
He hugs me tight, the pressure of his arms supplying the words he can’t sweep together just yet. Then he kind of forgets what he’s doing, moving toward his truck, then me, then revolving again. He jerks a thumb toward the gas station. “You got dinner, I’ll get dessert. You still love Milky Ways?”
The weight of a hundred tangled feelings, sparkling, effervescent, are working their way around that fracture, tightening, golden threads that glow in my chest. “They’re my favorite.”
He nods, then turns to sprint inside. “Be right back.”
I watch him go, blinking the dreamy clouds from my vision. The ripped vinyl seats are warm, engine puttering a comforting tune. Caramel has been an acquired taste for me, but the memories are always delicious.
Chapter Thirty-Five
MISTLETOE:
I send you my kisses, as many as the stars.
Alex’s living room is painted sea-glass green. It contains a dorm-style floor lamp he’s probably had for years, a dark gray sofa with the kind of soft, fragile fabric that, if you drag your fingernail across it, leaves a pale stripe. Scarlet pillows. An imitation leather chocolate-brown armchair, gently loved, with crayon markings on the stainless steel built-in cupholder. A round glass-top coffee table littered with AAA batteries, a screwdriver, and a toy race car that’s been taken apart. A cream-colored area rug with blue-and-copper patterns that I’ve seen on Amazon. Between the couch and a dog bed sits a pile of unpacked boxes with all-caps descriptors likeMILES BABY STUFFandCHRISTMAS, and shelves he hasn’t hung yet.
My eyes sweep the terrain, waiting for a punch to strike when I least suspect—I don’t know where it could spring from, maybe a television with Nick Jr. left on, or a photograph of Alex embracing Miles’s mom on the mantel, verifying that it was always her, will always be her for him.
The kitchen is narrow, with pine floors, a white refrigerator,a clock shaped like a teapot on the wall. Simple yellow curtains above a small, empty double-bowl sink, clean dishes stacked neatly in the drainer beside it. He has a bouquet of spatulas and ladles in a flower vase, same as I do, and Miles’s artwork sticks to the fridge with alphabet magnets, a yellow sun in the corner of every picture. The Polaroid of me has made a return to the fridge, as well, spotted with water damage, corners curled. Dog bowls rest on a mat next to the back door, the other side of which I investigated when my sisters, niece, and I went on our snooping expedition.
It’s neat and homey and smells like hazelnut coffee. Like that tropical fabric softener he uses, too. If I face the hallway where three doors split off, I get a faint whiff of orchids from the door on the right. What a revelation, to be standing exactly in this spot, with the person I thought was forever lost to me. And his expression is serene, as if this is all quite normal rather than the phenomenon that it is.
This is what his house looks like on an average day. He didn’t know I’d end up here when he cleaned it earlier, which means he’s genuinely tidy. Responsible. If we lived together one day, I wouldn’t be the only one contributing to upkeep. I pin this piece of information to the top of his file.
Standing in this space, visually collecting all of the odds and ends of Alex’s everyday life, I become aware that I’ve been unconsciously expecting the layout of Spencer’s house, his colors and decorations, Adalyn’s toy bins. Now that I’m here, it’s so different in size, shape, color, smell, texture that Adalyn herself could appear and I would be able to handle it. There’s an air-conditioning unit in the living room window that rattles with a clatter like ice cubes are inside it, blowing frigid air—I’d forgotten how cold helikes it—and dog toys half jammed under the couch. A red plastic tub overloaded with toys. This is a new place where only new memories are permitted.
