Page 93 of All the way home

After that, he almost always remembered to tell her first. Sometimes he forgot until he had already tilted her chin up with one finger, and then he would whisper it. Rena thought he probably did that on purpose, since occasionally it made her shiver.

The warnings have stopped slowly, over the years.

Long ago, she gave up on reminding him, because it always seems to hurt his feelings, but then when he surprises her with a kiss and she tenses up, he’ll retreat like that’s hurt his feelings, too, which isn’t fair, because it’s instinct. Then she’s the one left feeling bad, even though she’s cautioned him a hundred times.

It used to be easy. They used to be happy as a unit. They used to make each other happy. What happened?

It’s a useless question.

She knows the answer.

Chapter Thirty

Zach

“You.” Zach lifts his glass to his mouth.

Brow furrowed, Kieran’s hands fall into his lap. “What?”

“You asked me who I’d text right before I died, whose number I don’t have.”

A slow, incredulous smile spreads across Kieran’s face. “That was fucking smooth, Zacchaeus.”

“I take it back,” Zach says, at once. “I don’t want your fucking number.”

“Okay, okay.” Kieran raises both hands. “I won’t call you Zacchaeus.”

“You’d better not. I’d have to stop talking to you.”

“Noted.” Kieran leans forward. “So, what would this text to me say, then?”

While he pauses to think, he runs his finger in a slow circle on the tabletop, avoiding the sticky spot. Then he smiles. “It would say, ‘Remember that hypothetical question you asked me about imminent death? It’s coming true and I think you cursed me.’ ”

Kieran laughs and holds his hand out. “Phone.”

When Zach unlocks it and hands it over, Kieran punches a number into a new text thread and sends a message. Pushing it back across the table, he pulls his own phone out—it dwarfs Zach’s comparatively tiny old one—and types out a text.

His phone vibrates.

The conversation on his screen reads:

!

I promise not to curse you

“Appreciated.” Zach pockets his phone. “I’m on an eighteen-year streak I’d rather not break.”

“Jesus. Where did you even come from?” Kieran grins, then continues before Zach can answer. “Anyway, now you do have my number. So you’ll have to think of a different answer for who you’d text.”

This time, he’s ready.

“Carl Sagan,” Zach tells him. “Just because I think it would be a sweet afterlife flex to be able to say my last message was to . . . you know. The Carl.”

“Yes.” Kieran nods gravely, clearly just playing along. “Of course. The Carl would certainly be a flex. Who is Carl Sagan?”

“An astronomer.”

“You’re a nerd.” Kieran blinks, as though it’s just dawning on him now.