“Sounds good.”
She started walking, pausing briefly to rub her temple, like the sun had reminded her head that it still wasn’t thrilled with her life choices. Nate sighed quietly. Relief crept in, but so did the uncomfortable awareness he’d just taken the conversational equivalent of hiding behind the couch.
***
The bus had barely pulled away from Ella’s stop before Nate’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He tugged it out, already knowing who it would be. Because, of course Jason would call. His brother could smellNate’s Particular Flavor of Disasterthe way sharks smelled blood.
“So,” Jason said in his ear, the sound of traffic and distant children’s laughter—and whatever suburban competence his brother had mastered—humming behind him, “have you told her yet?”
Nate adjusted his grip on the phone and stepped around a woman dragging a wheeled suitcase that looked like it had seen better decades. “Not exactly.”
There was a pause. A dangerous one.
“Not exactly,” Jason repeated. “Okay. Walk me through what ‘not exactly’ means.”
Nate slowed as the pedestrian light flashed green, and immediately started counting down like it, too, was judging him. “It means I tried to.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Kind of.”
“Of course you did.”
“And then,” Nate continued, “I chickened out.”
Jason exhaled slowly, the kind of sigh that carried the weight of a thousandI can’t believe I have to deal with youmoments. “Nate.”
“I know.”
“No,” Jason said, “you don’t. Because if you knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation while you wander around Geneva pretending your emotional constipation is a charming personality quirk.”
Nate snorted, dodging a cyclist who rang his bell with theatrical disdain. “It’s not constipation. It’s selective disclosure.”
“Wow. Get that from a self-help book, or are you workshopping excuses now?”
Nate crossed the street, his shoes scuffing against the pavement. “Look, I got close to saying it, but this girl I used to work with showed up out of nowhere, and my brain pulled the fire alarm.”
“That’s because you’re scared,” Jason said.
“Yes, thank you, Dr. Freud,” Nate muttered. “I’m aware.”
Jason ignored him. Because that was Jason’s superpower—plowing through denial like it was a flimsy roadblock. “You’re doing what you always do. You’re trying to control the outcome by not participating.”
“I am participating. I mentioned I was an actor.”
“But not the genre,” Jason fired back.
Nate stopped outside the bus stop, the glass façade reflecting the gray, unyielding concrete of the city. “She knows I care,” he said, his voice rough.
Jason laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Buddy. That is not the same thing.”
Nate pressed his palm against the cool glass of the bus shelter, his forehead following a second later. “It’s just a couple moredays,” he said, more to himself than to Jason. “I can get out of this without hurting her. Without screwing it up.”
Jason went very quiet. “You know what screws it up?” he asked finally.
Nate groaned. “If you say ‘not telling her,’ I’m hanging up.”
“Not telling her,” Jason said promptly. “Because then she gets to fill in the blanks herself. And trust me, people are very creative when left alone with blanks. They don’t draw hearts and rainbows, Nate. They draw ‘you’re a lying piece of shit.’”
