Shuffling aside, we both returned to our routine.
But the interaction followed me through the rest of the day like a melody I couldn’t stop humming. It pulsed beneath my concentration while I worked. It stirred in my mind while I made dinner, looping again and again as I asked myself the same question. What if it meant something?
Luke came home a little after six. “It smells fantastic in here. Did you make bread?” he asked as he walked into the kitchen.
“Sourdough. I thought it would go with the pasta I’m cooking.” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Mac and cheese.”
His eyes lit up. “Macaroni. Macaroni. Macaroni,” he chanted while doing a silly shimmy. “That’s it, I’m keeping you forever. You’re never allowed to leave.” Then, almost sheepishly, he added, “I mean that in a fully consensual, non-possessive, no emotional coercion intended kind of way.”
“Duly noted,’ I said. “No coercion detected. Though for clarity’s sake, I do have a follow-up question.”
“Hit me.”
“Are you saying if I moved out you’d chase me down and beg me to come back?”
Walking up behind me, he grabbed my hand, turning me to face him, cupping the underside of my jaw, his thumb tracing my chin. “I would follow you anywhere you wanted to go, Ollie. But if you ever genuinely wanted to move out, I’d help you pack. I’d carry the boxes and drive you to your new place in an instant.”
But what do you want? Do you want me here with you like I want to be with you? Would you fight for the chance to be withme?I thought. More questions that wouldn’t be fair to ask him. Luke honored my agency, he always had. It might not be what I wanted to hear, but it meant something that he wanted me to live on my own terms.
“You would?” I said, not trusting my voice to speak above a whisper.
“Of course I would. My role was always to make sure you had somewhere solid to stand while you figured out what you wanted to do next, not to keep you here if you decided it was time to move on. I’m kinda like an emotional spotter, helping you lift the weight until you’re confident you can carry it on your own.”
“And when I can carry it on my own?”
His thumb swiped my jaw again. “Only you get to decide what that looks like. But I never want to be the thing that keeps you from building your own life. I never want to stand in the way of you doing what’s right for you. I only wanna be there. I hope wherever you go, that you’ll still let me be a part of your life.”
Christ. This man. This generous, infuriatingly wonderful man with his love-shaped sentiments that never crossed over into confessions. The damn organ inside my chest didn’t know whether to hope or harden, to remain open or finally learn to let him go.
“And if what’s right for me is to stay here?”
“If staying is what’s right for you, then cool. That’s the plan and we stick with it.” Before I could melt into the sentiment he added, “Besides, with you here I get homecooked carbs and baked goodies at all times. If you moved out, I’d have to relearn how to feed myself like an adult, and I’m not ready to backslide into protein bars full time.”
I knew for a fact that Luke ate a highly nutritious diet without me. “You’d survive.”
“I would technically survive. But thrive? Questionable. Highly questionable. I’ve tasted luxury. You can’t just put that genie back in the bottle.”
“So you keep me around because of what I give you? You sure know how to charm a guy,” I drawled.
“They do say the way to a guy’s heart is through his stomach, so really, you should be charmed.”
“Right. Nothing makes a man feel cherished quite like learning he’s been reduced to a housewife from the fifties,” I deadpanned.
“Now listen here, toots,” he said, leaning one elbow against the counter. “A fella works all day at his very important man job to keep a roof over our heads, the least he deserves is a hot meal and a pretty smile when he walks through the door.”
“Mind your tongue,dear. I am about one sentence away from unionizing, and then where would you be.”
“Fair,” he conceded. “For real, though. I don’t keep you around for what you give me. I want you around because my life is better when you’re in it.”
My chest grew far too tight, like my ribs were closing around my heart to keep it from leaping at him, unchecked and unprotected. Luke said all the right things, but being wanted incidentally wasn’t the equivalent of being chosen intentionally. “Same,” I whispered.
After dinner we migrated to the couch. We both reached for the remote at the same moment, our hands colliding. I pulled my hand back as Luke withdrew his, sending the remote falling to the floor, the battery cover popping open, the batteries dislodging themselves on impact.
“Foul!” Luke said with a chuckle, bending down to pick up the remote. After placing the batteries and the cover back, he passed the remote to me. “You pick.”
We landed on some overproduced and underwritten crime drama. Two episodes in, the protagonist made a bafflingly stupid decision and I began ranting.
“Come on. You’re a homicide detective, not a toddler with a death wish. You call for backup. You. Call. For. Backup. What is this, crime procedures for dummies? Jesus, even I know not to go into a suspected murderer’s house alone.”
