My heart beats. Once. Twice. Then I gesture at Frank. “We’re out for our morning constitutional. He’s training for a marathon.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “Does the marathon involve frequent bowel movements?”
“Only if he’s winning.”
He huffs a laugh, but it dies quickly. The air shifts. The silence stretches again—tight, uncertain.
I look at him, and I see it. The thing he’s trying not to show. The hurt. The guilt. The hope, still flickering behind his eyes even though he's trying to smother it.
I take a breath, then another. My hands are ice in his sleeves, and I decide I need to own up to my dare and be honest. “Youweren’t my first love. But you’re the first person I’ve wanted to love since. And that has to mean something.”
His face, his whole body, goes still.
“B…”
“I know. I’m late. Like, comically late. But I needed time. And a glitter notebook. And two friends with no boundaries.”
He looks down at his shoes. “It’s not only you. I’ve been holding back, too.”
“Because of Owen.”
He nods. “I made a promise to him. I loved him. He was my best friend. And I—there were years where I wondered if I screwed it all up by feeling something for you. Like I’d broken some sacred code. Or that me wishing that we could be together caused something catastrophic to happen in the universe. Like checking on you, wanting to comfort you, was the ultimate act of betrayal.”
The rain is drumming harder now, creating little rivers in the street. “I can’t speak on behalf of the universe, but you didn’t. You were there. You took care of us. You were you.”
Noah’s face twists into a grimace, like the words are splinters he’s still working out. “I don’t want to replace him. That’s never what this was.” He pauses, dragging a hand down his face. “I went up to our old fishing spot last weekend. Brought his favorite sandwich, sat on that rock where he always used to yell at me for tangling the lines.”
A quiet smile ghosts across his lips, then fades.
“I talked to him. Like he was sitting right there next to me.” He swallows hard. “And I don’t know, maybe it sounds crazy, but I felt like he was listening. Like he gave me his blessing or something. Like, he was okay with this. With me trying to keep living and loving the one person he’d do anything for.”
I swallow. “I’m not promising anything except honesty. I’m not fixed. I still cry in the laundry room sometimes for no reason.”
“I once teared up a bit in the frozen peas aisle.” His voice is husky and low.
“Yeah. Owen used to hate peas.”
“You don’t owe me love,” he says quietly. “But maybe you owe yourself the chance to try. Whether it’s with me or someone else.”
That’s when I step closer. Close enough to see the lines at the corners of his eyes and the hope he’s still trying to bury.
“I am trying,” I whisper. “Right now. And I wouldn’t want it to be with anyone else.”
And then I kiss him. The water cascades down our backs and faces, the scent of rain mingling with his warm cedar smell and minty taste. My body pushes into his, instinctively craving his touch and the brief thought runs through my head. I have to tell Viv that I did it. Yep. I rain-troped the mailman.
I had it worked out in my mind that it would be sunny and sweet, but it’s not. There’s the faint smell of Frank’s poop that’s now running down a river in Mildred’s lawn, and the water is dripping down my pants into my underwear. It’s not neat or choreographed. It’s real. The kind of kiss that tastes like laughter and tears and too much time spent pretending we didn’t want this.
I step back before tilting my chin up. “I’m still scared, and a little guilty, and not entirely healed.”
“Me too.”
Frank snorts.
We both look down at him. His tongue flops out of his mouth, and he looks at us like he’s above all this emotional nonsense.
“Want to walk my route with me?”
I glance up at the still thundering sky and then over at Noah’s already soaked shirt.
