He turned to look at her, could feel the surprise that was surely registering on his face. “Your apartment?” he repeated, confused.
She nodded, her eyes still out on the water, and he watched her chest lift on a deep inhale. He couldn’t quite see her eyes, but he had a feeling.
He had a feeling she was about to say something rash.
“I want to make mine like yours.”
Chapter 11
So, she’d said it.
Will was quiet beside her, and at first she was grateful. It meant that she could spend the first few seconds following her confession—was it too much to call it a confession?—with her eyes ahead, out on the sunset waters of this place she’d never seen, letting the feeling of her words wash over her. She hadn’tquiteplanned to say them, or at least she hadn’t fully decided yet, but now that she had—
“You want to rent your unit?” he broke in.
“What!” Nora exclaimed, snapping her head toward him so quickly that she nearly lost her balance. She shifted, turning to face him. “Notrentit!”
He looked at her from behind his glasses (of course he was wearing his glasses; that’s probably why she’d made the confession! There was no telling the power of those spectacles), the dark mass of his hair blowing gently across his forehead. He looked like he could be in a calendar—twelve months of men looking terrific by a lake—but also the expression on his face suggested he thought Nora could be in a monthly calendar featuring people who made absolutely no sense.
“Notrent it?” he repeated.
“No!” She lowered her voice from outrage volume, then narrowed her eyes at him. “And don’t call it a unit.”
He pressed his lips together in a way she recognized, holding up his hands in mock surrender. Silence fell between them again, and she could tell he was waiting for her to explain herself. But even the suggestion, the misunderstanding—that she wouldeverrent Nonna’s apartment!—was so rattling to her that she barely knew how to start again.
“Want to walk a bit?” he said after a minute, tipping his chin up toward the shoreline.
She nodded, grateful for the suggestion, and they both stood—Nora brushing her sand-coated palms across the front of her jeans, Will shaking out his jacket. She was still thinking over what to say when they reached the shoreline, a cool wind blowing off the water that had her crossing her arms over her chest.
“Here,” Will said, and settled his jacket over her shoulders.
And like that—with that warm and perfect weight enveloping her, Will’s scent close and soothing—something inside her eased, shook free. It felt like that night two weeks ago, in her bed: the golden-hour perfection of those first few minutes of conversation they’d had, before things had turned so fraught and sad.
Before he’d gone, and before she’d got to thinking.
“Mostly it’s about the towel rod,” she blurted, which was maybe not that ideal thought to have shake free first. Then again, maybe it was. The towel rod was simple, specific. A change, but nothing drastic. Nonna, she was sure, would support it.
“The . . . what?”
She cleared her throat, reaching up to gather Will’s jacket tighter around her. There, that was better. “The towel rod that you put in your bathroom?”
“Yeah, I remember. But why—?”
“I want one of those. It’d be nice to have one, so I’m going to put one in.”
Even to her own ears, it sounded overly sharp, full of the same strained, nervous conviction she’d needed to get herself to come here today.You’re going to put the address into your phone, she’d told herself.You’re going to drive there,withoutgetting lost, and you’re going to say thank you.
He stopped, and after a step she did, too, turning back to face him. When they’d gotten here, the light was a bright, stunning pink-orange, but now it was nearly dark, the planes of Will’s face lit by the harbor lights in the distance.
“Is this really about the towel rod?” he asked, with his doubtful doctor face on.
It’s about you, she thought, blinking down at the sand, at the soft lapping of the water that stopped short of her feet.It’s about what you told me, and how it made me see things differently. Donny’s apartment, Nonna’s apartment.
Instead, she shrugged and said, “It’s about settling in, I guess. I’ve lived there for a while now, and I’ve been so busy. I think I’m starting to notice that there’s a few things I could do to make things more—”
Mine, her brain supplied automatically, but it felt wrong to say it. Disloyal.
“Convenient,” she finished.
