Lines and lines of lovely, loving code. The shop, where he first found me. The Promenade, where we first made our plan. The Garment Worker, and the awning where we hid from the rain. A tiny, always crowded restaurant in Nolita, a bright mural on Bowery. Off Sixth Avenue, the quiet refuge of Winston Churchill Square. A taco joint in the East Village. The broad, beautiful green of Prospect Park. A bar, an urgent care, my apartment building and his.
More and more numbers, for every place in the city that means something to me and Reid.
And then one row of them, approximately two hours out of place.
The numbers that led me to this hotel.
My eyes brim with tears again, and Reid’s jaw ticks with tension. His hands in his pockets look like they clench in frustration at the distance we’re being forced to keep from each another.
“Guess I missed it,” Agent Tirmizi says, but I don’t think she did. I think she’s a not-so-secret romantic. “Anyway, you’re his attorney,” she adds. “You should be protecting his interests. He’s allowed to see people.”
Micah looks back and forth between Reid and me, and then Reid and Agent Tirmizi. He sighs. Obviously I’ve never met him before, but I can see signs of fatigue all over his face. I imagine he’s had a stressful few days, too.
“I wanted to get through the rest of this stuff today,” he says apologetically, and for the first time I notice the setup of the room, the round, four-seat table that’s littered with documents. I don’t know what all of it is—statements or evidence or whatever Reid’s been stuck taking care of, but I know he absolutely should get a break.
“Please,” Reid says, the first word he’s spoken since I came in this room. His voice is hoarse-sounding, and I think of the line from his letter, the one where he said he begged.I begged her.“Please, let me have a few minutes with her.”
Agent Tirmizi moves over to the table, stacking papers. After a beat, Micah follows her, and for what feels like actual centuries Reid and I stand in our respective spots, our eyes on each other while we wait. Theon my heart is fully unfurled into the word it’s always wanted to be.
it beats.
“You know where to find us,” Agent Tirmizi says as she heads to the door.
Micah delays a beat, stops, and murmurs quietly to Reid, probably some reminder about what he can and can’t say. He gives me another apologetic look before he finally passes through the door Agent Tirmizi is holding open.
And when it clicks shut behind them, Reid and I are finally alone.
“Meg,” he says immediately. “Please don’t cry.”
“Am I crying?” I say. “I hardly notice anymore.”
He raises a hand through his hair. “I am so—”
“Reid,” I interrupt him. I step farther into the room, pausing briefly to set the pages of his letter onto the bed. But then I move to him. I stand directly in front of him and look at his gorgeous, stern, triple-take face. His sad eyes. I reach out and circle my fingers around each of his wrists. I tug his hands loose from his pockets.
“It’s okay,” I say.
He lowers his head, his hair falling over his brow.
“I have done so much damage,” he says, almost a whisper.
“It’s okay,” I repeat, and I step into him more. I pull his wrists toward me and wrap them around my lower back.
And then I put my arms around him.
The best way to describe what happens to Reid’s body next is to say that he . . .slouches. As though he has been relieved of the most massive weight on those broad shoulders, he bends over me, his back curved, his head pressed into my hair, his arms holding me as though I’m the one thing in this whole entire world keeping him upright. Beneath my hands his back expands and contracts with great, heaving breaths, and I tighten my arms; I hold him together through whatever this is. I want to say,Reid, don’t cry, but also I want to tell him he can cry all he wants.
I don’t know how long we stand this way. Long enough that Reid’s breathing regulates, long enough that I loosen my arms, switching from clutching him tight to rubbing my palms up and down the broad, tight muscles of his back, long enough that I’m sure we both grow stiff and achy, our height differential never more uncomfortable than when we stand like this. When he pulls back from me, he keeps his head tipped down, and I take his hands from my waist, pull him over to the bed. We sit beside each other, the pages of his letter between us.
He clears his throat. “Thank you. For coming all this way.”
“You told me to.”
He still won’t raise his eyes to mine. “It was . . . an impulse,” he says, running a hand through his hair again.
“It was a good one. I loved your letter.”
His eyes flick upward, a question in them. Then he lowers them again. “Meg, I am sure I have made such a mess of your life. I’m afraid to ask what you’ve been through, these past couple of days.”
