Great Big Beautiful Life(113)

“I do want it,” he admits. “I just want other things more.”

He kisses me again, slow and purposeful. A kiss that feels like a promise. And then I take him inside and try to find every way I can to make my own promises.

And I keep an existing one.

Every time I almost tell him I love him, I drag the words back into myself, hold them tight. One more night. One more night and then I can say it, the whole wonderful truth.





33




In the morning, I tiptoe past a sleeping Hayden and go to the kitchen. I drink water while my coffee brews, then drink coffee while I pack up my laptop and notes.

I put my things by the front door, brush my teeth, wash my face, and then creep back into the bedroom to get dressed.

Despite my being as quiet as I could manage, Hayden stirs awake while I’m pulling my shirt over my head. He slits one eye open at me and gives me a sleepy smile that, to the untrained eye, might appear to be a grimace. “Hey,” he croaks.

My heart swells in my chest. “I was trying not to wake you.”

“I should get up anyway,” he says, pushing himself up, the blankets coiled suggestively around his bare waist. “C’mere.”

I go sit beside him, and he pulls me in against his chest, kissing the top of my head.

“I like waking up next to you,” he murmurs.

“What about my snoring?” I ask.

“I like that too,” he says. “Like a white noise machine turned all the way up.”

I chortle and, with some effort, peel myself away from him. “You’re welcome to use it anytime you want.”

I get up and grab a hair tie and some bobby pins off the dresser, using them to pin my short hair up off my neck. The air-conditioning is doing all it can, but it’s hot today, I’d guess, based on the temperature of the bedroom alone.

“What’s this?” I hear him ask, some of the sleep clearing from his voice.

I turn around and find him holding the small framed mosaic I bought from the gallery down by the beach.

“That,” I say, crossing toward him and taking the mosaic from his hands, “is Nicollet.”

“No, I know,” he says. “I meant, I’ve never seen anyone spell it like that, other than my mom.”

I stare blankly back at him, my hand—and with it, the mosaic—dropping to my side. “That’s your mom’s name?”

He nods. “Spelled just like that. Two l’s, and no e on the end.”

A small wave of dizziness passes over me, followed by that buzzing sensation in the back of my head, the feeling that I’m approaching something important. “Is it a family name? Someone’s maiden name, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“You’ve never asked her?” Even if they’re not super close, that doesn’t seem like him, to have not sought out that information. Or, honestly, even have had it offered freely.

“She doesn’t know where it came from,” he says. “She was adopted, but she’d already been named. The agency told my grandparents it would be best for her if they kept it. That’s why she was always so anxious about health stuff, you know? Because she doesn’t have a family medical history or anything. I thought I’d told you that.”

“You didn’t.” The floor sways under me as questions start burbling up through my mind. “You mentioned the health anxiety, but not the rest.”

He sits up straighter, his brows knitting. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…”

I don’t know where that sentence was going. Am I okay? Am I seeing connections where there are none? Journalism will do that to you sometimes—make you view the world as a puzzle to be solved.

His mother has the same name as an old hotel the Ives family owned. So what?

The same name as the little sister Lawrence left home to save, and the name given to Ruth Nicollet Allen, a secret Ives baby. Slightly more coincidental, but ultimately meaningless.

But then there’s what Hayden told me, about how he’s gotten here.

He didn’t track Margaret down. She tracked him down.

I close my eyes to stop the room from spinning.

“What year was your mom born?” I ask.

His forehead wrinkles. “What?”

“Just—when was she born?” I say, flustered.

He laughs uneasily. “Nineteen sixty-seven. Now are you going to tell me what all this is about?” He starts to rise, alarm written across his face. “Alice, are you okay?”

“I just—that reminded me of something, and—” I step back from him.

My phone alarm goes off then, shrieking out its warning that I have to leave this second or risk being late to my last appointment with Margaret.

I break out of the trance, though my mind is still reeling, my body alternating between flaming hot and ice cold.

“I’m running late,” I stammer, hurrying for the door.

“Alice?” he shouts after me.

“I’ll call you when I’m done,” I promise without looking back, my face on fire. I grab my bag by the door, realize I still have the mosaic in my hand, and stuff it in on top of my computer. And then I run.



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