“Well, I had a crush on you right then,” Rory says, eyes shifting my way again. “It wasn’t just that you were really attractive, thoughobviously that’s true.” It’s the gushiest thing I’ve ever heard him say, but he drops it like it’s no big deal, like it’s something I must’ve assumed. “I just—I felt like we knew each other already,” he goes on. “I actually thought our first coffee at Gail’s was a date.”
“What?” I ask, thoroughly confused now. There was nothing romantic about that day in the least.
But replaying the scene in my head, I note how he showed up early, a bit overdressed. How he took an interest in getting to know me and tried way too hard to hold the umbrella over us. How he comforted me when I told him about what happened with Harold.
Maybe thatwasromance andisromance. The real, stripped-down thing that I was too dense to recognize at the time. Repentance gnaws at me. I wish I could go back and do that day differently. Appreciate him right from the start.
“I actually told Emily about it before I asked you out,” Rory says, talking to his twisting hands again. “I know I didn’t need to ask for her permission, but it felt right since we were still talking. So yeah, that was a big deal for me. But I could tell pretty quick you were friend-zoning me. And that was fine. You’d just been through that whole thing with Harold, and I just wanted to get to know you.”
The space between where I’d expected this to go and where it’s actually going continues to widen, in the best way possible.
“So I was telling myself that I was okay being friends,” Rory goes on. “That I was still hoping it would work out with Emily because that made more sense. I could picture a life with her fifty years into the future. With you … I didn’t know where you’d be moving next. Everything felt up in the air.
“And over Christmas, Emily said that she wanted to get back together,” Rory continues. “Said she did see herself marrying meafter all. And I don’t know … I kept thinking about you during the whole thing. Thinking about how you’d probably never love me or want to do life together.”
My stomach dips down at that, then swoops back up at his next words.
“But I realized that Iwantedyou to love me, and Iwantedit to work with you and me, and there was no way I could commit to someone else. So I ended things with Emily and just sat on it for a while. I needed to make sure I was thinking clearly, not just feeling clearly. That’s why I haven’t reached out.”
A chilling sensation is spreading over me, but instead of making me cold, it’s making me warm.
“And then when I got your letter on Friday,” he says, “it seemed too good to be true. I genuinely thought it might’ve been a joke or something.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” I tell him again. “I’d never joke about that.”
“I know that now. And I know we’d have a lot of life stuff to figure out. I don’t want to hold you back in your career or make you move back to Michigan if you don’t want to. And you know I’m the kind of person who likes clear plans. But what I know is that I’d rather be with you and have some uncertainty than have the certainty of a life without you.”
The words run through me like a stream through a dessert. I’m praying they’re not a mirage.
“I’m not a words person, as you know,” Rory carries on in a diligent tone, like he’s determined to express himself the best he can. “It’s hard for me to say what I’m feeling, but it’s not hard for me to feel what I’m feeling. And what I feel is that I love you, and I want to be with you. If the stuff you wrote is still true.”
I wait for a moment before saying anything, just to make sure that I’m not about to wake up from a dream. When the reality wriggles its way into my skeptical soul, I let myself reply. “Of course it’s true. I bloody love you, Rory,” I say with an English lilt.
He looks joyful, which means heisjoyful because he doesn’t have the ability to disguise his emotions. “Smashing news, I reckon!” he says in a completely butchered accent of his own, and we double over with laughter, like we’re just the funniest, luckiest people on the planet.
It’s not polished and perfect like the movies, and there’s so much more depth and texture to it this way, two people awkwardly jumping from friends to lovers, each trusting the other to help ease the transition.
“Lookit,” Rory says, gesturing to our surroundings, which we both seem to have forgotten. “We’re on Tower Bridge. Didn’t you say once that this was your favorite place in London?”
I look out in front of us. Sure enough, the bus is starting across the iconic bridge. It’s ridiculously picturesque, the robin’s-egg-blue suspension rods swooping regally from the turreted towers, the Thames glistening beneath it as the rain lands lightly and radiates out in a million concentric circles. Rory’s right—this has always been my favorite landmark in the city. But I don’t have any impulse to stare at the landscape or snap a picture. The view is only beautiful because I’m sharing it with someone beautiful.
“I changed my mind,” I tell Rory. “My favorite place isn’t a landmark anymore. It’s a person.”
“You stole that line from one of your movies, didn’t you?” Rory asks with good-natured skepticism.
“It’s a Kat original,” I assure him.
“Alright, I’ve got a line for you,” Rory says. “You know I love dogs, but guess it turns out I’m a Kat person after all.”
The corners of my mouth twitch. “Good one.”
“A solid supply of dad jokes is one of the duties I take very seriously as your boyfriend,” Rory says happily.
Boyfriend.The word lands happily on my ears, with the promise of all to come.
It starts raining, some mixture of mist and droplets.
“The sky is too chuffed to keep in its tears,” I declare, catching the rain on my outstretched palms. “Do you want to go down below?” I ask Rory, since I know he doesn’t like getting his clothes out of sorts.
