“She does,” Delia confirmed to the table. “Talks about her constantly.”
“She’s a great kid,” I said through my teeth.
Delia smiled her most innocent smile and took a sip of her beer.
Everyone else got to talking about their weekend plans—seemed like we’d been invited to hang out with them at the lake tomorrow, they’d rented a boat, blah blah blah…but I was totally fixated on the bar. Because now that I was actually looking, I couldn’t stop. And Nash…he wasn’t alone. He was talking to a woman, the two of them close enough that it had to be intimate, and she was trailing her finger around the rim of the glass and he kept laughing.
She looked pretty—but a grown-up kind of pretty that I’d never been, mature, closer to his age. I bet she didn’t trip over herself and embarrass herself and I bet she was much better in bed than I was, more like Nash, who was so experienced and?—
“I need to pee,” I announced to the table.
Connor nodded. “Yeah…sure, I’ll let you out.”
He stood so I could slide out of the booth, and I strode across the room with my head down, brushing past peoplestanding at high-tops and playing pool. The noise was suddenly overwhelming, all of it just…too much.
I made it to the bathroom and found myself alone in there—just one room, clean—and I locked the door.
I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked my reflection. “Yousaid no. He asked you out and you said no, this wasyour choice.”
Then I just…started crying.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I was stupid and because I had feelings for someone I wasn’t supposed to, and because I desperately,desperatelywanted Nash and Nell in my life. I didn’t just want sex after hours at the bar or in my classroom, I wanted to spend the night in his bed. I wanted to make pancakes in his tiny little kitchen. I wanted to read to Nell.
I took this ugly, ragged inhale and cried some more. My makeup was getting all messed up.
“Pull it together,” I muttered. “You’re being so stupid, Margot.”
I ran the cold water and pressed my hands against my face, willing the redness down. The bathroom was small and smelled like old wood and lemon cleaner and I was standing in it crying over a man who was out there laughing with a beautiful woman his own age who probably had her life together and didn’t accidentally look at people’s crotches while talking about wanting children.
You wanted to figure out who you are here,I reminded myself.Without someone else being the whole reason.
The problem was I was starting to suspect that Nash wasn’t someone else being the reason. Nash was just—a person I wanted. Separately from everything else. Not because I needed someone, not because I was lonely or raw from Bryce, but because he was him. Because he made Nell feel safe. Because heput a dollar in a swear jar and then a ten for the guinea pig and picked up every single pen off the floor without being asked.
Because he’d listened to me for three hours on the worst night of my recent life and given me mostly orange juice and meant it kindly.
I wanted him the way I’d wanted kids since I was old enough to understand what wanting something meant—not as a fix for something broken, just as a fact about myself. A thing that was true regardless of circumstances.
That was so much more inconvenient than just being lonely.
I blew out a breath. Fixed my mascara as best I could with a piece of toilet paper. Told myself I was going to go back out there, be normal, be kind to Connor who had done nothing wrong, and go home at a reasonable hour.
I unlocked the door.
Nash was in the hallway.
He was leaning against the wall a few feet away with his hands in his pockets, watching the door like he’d been waiting—and it occurred to me then that he really waswaiting, waiting for me, to…do what?
I swallowed hard.
I was going to cry again.
He clocked it right away, taking a step toward me.
“Did that asshole say something to you?” he muttered. “You’re—you’re crying?—”
“It’s not him,” I rushed out. “It’syou.”
