Page 99 of Offside

Maren: RYAN

Ryan: You have a translation app. I have faith in you.

I typed the phonetic approximation I’d been working with for three days and got a result that was close enough.

I stared at my screen.

I already miss you.

He’d said that. At the facility, before he left, looking at me in the corridor with that steady certainty. Jag saknar dig redan. I hadn’t known what it meant and he’d known I didn’t know and he’d said it anyway.

Maren: You said that at the arena. Before you left.

Ryan: I know.

Maren: You knew I didn’t understand it

Ryan: I knew you would figure it out eventually.

Maren: That’s maddening

Ryan: Is it tho?

I looked at the bracelet, then at the translation still open on my phone, then at the ceiling of my office, where I’d been spending entirely too many hours this week.

Maren: No. Not really.

His response took a minute. Then a single word in Swedish I didn’t know and didn’t immediately look up, because I was starting to understand that he left me things to find in my own time, and I was starting to like it.

Ryan: Min

Maren: I know what that means too…

Ryan: Good. Don’t forget it while I’m gone.

Swoon.

The second delivery came on day three. Coffee from the place two blocks from the facility I’d mentioned once, in passing on a Sunday morning when we were still in bed and I was half asleep. The cup had a sleeve with my name on it and a note in that same spare handwriting. Have a beautiful day.

I stood in the facility lobby holding it and smiled like an idiot, and it had nothing to do with the coffee.

Day five brought flowers. Tulips, deep coral, a generous bunch with the clean unpretentious beauty of something Scandinavian. I’d expected roses if I’d expected anything at all. I hadn’t expected tulips, which was exactly the point. The card. Calgary is cold. Even for me. You’re all I’m thinking about.

I put them on my desk where I could see them from my chair.

Day seven was a book.

I opened the package at my desk and went still when I saw what it was. The second The Ashby Letters novel, hardcover, and when I turned it over and opened the front cover I found two signatures. The author’s, dated two weeks ago. Below it, in Ryan’s handwriting. I have one. You have two. Three comes out in thirteen months and we’ll get it together.

I laughed out loud in my empty office, alone, completely delighted, and sat there for a full minute holding it.

He had the first edition of book one on his shelf. I’d seen it the first night I went to his apartment, noted it with the same quiet surprise I’d felt about everything in that space. The books, the real kitchen, evidence that someone lived here and not just slept here. He’d caught me looking and said nothing, just watched me take it in with that patience he had, like he had all the time in the world for me to figure things out.

Now I had book two. Signed. First edition.

Together we had a set.

I texted him a photo of the inscription and his response came back in under a minute.