You, With a View(55)

“Yeah,” he says finally. “It’ll be fine.”

It’s hard to tell if he actually believes it, but I have no doubt it will be. If anyone can make miracles happen, it’s Theo, even backed into a corner.

He circles around me, the tightness in his shoulders loosening just a bit. “Now it’s your turn for secrets, Shepard.”

I blurt out, “I’m proud of you.”

I don’t know who’s more shocked by what comes out of my mouth: Theo or me.

“Oh god. I can’t believe I said that. Out loud.” I press my hand to my forehead, groaning. “Your head’s gonna get so big it’ll explode everywhere.”

He grimaces, but amusement overtakes his surprise. “Graphic.”

“It’s true, though. I’ve . . . kind of followed your career a little bit over the years.” His mouth curls in a wide grin, his dimple popping. I press my finger against it, pushing his face back. “Shut up, don’t you dare bring up the LinkedIn thing.”

Thank god he doesn’t know about the notifications; he’s already too smug.

“We fought a lot for supremacy in high school, didn’t we?” I continue.

“Voted Most Likely to Succeed,” he says, dryly. “Our one and only tie.”

“But you won that, too, in the end.” I’m being unbearably honest. But with his admission, he’s showing me I’m strong enough to lean on. That maybe it’s safe to lean on him, too. “I’m sure you’re far too busy doing Forbes 30 Under 30 things to stalk my LinkedIn, but I’m not exactly killing it.”

“You never list your titles, so I don’t actually know what you do,” he says. “You don’t like your job?”

I don’t have one. I could just spill it all right now, but that’s too big. If I’m vulnerable in pieces, I won’t lose myself completely.

“It’s not what I want to do,” I say instead. “But I’ve been too scared to do what I actually want.”

“Your photography.”

I nod. That’s a secret, too. I’m handing them out now, but they’re manageable ones. “I tried to make it work after I graduated, but I got burned and gave up. Or failed, depending on how you want to frame it. When Gram died, I didn’t want to do anything at all.” I blink, and a drop of water falls from my eyelashes. “Especially something that she never got to see me succeed at.”

“I doubt that’s how she saw it.”

Deep down, it feels true, but it hurts too much to dwell on. “Anyway, you’ve always been this bastion of success to me. You never second-guessed yourself. And trust me, I recognize that some of that is white man confidence.”

He laughs. “I second-guess myself all the time.”

“Well, from my perspective, to see you at the helm of this thing you built, being invested in it in every way, and fighting back . . . I don’t know, it’s impressive. You’ve always been impressive, which is your most annoying trait.”

I expect him to laugh, but instead he just stares at me, his cheeks pink, looking leveled.

“There are forty other traits I could name off the top of my head,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable.

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Goddammit, Shepard.”

“At what point did I make a wrong turn?”

When he lowers his hands, his eyes are red from the pressure he put there. “You didn’t.”

I don’t believe him, but he moves closer, gazing down at me with an expression so tangled I could never pull the strings of it apart to identify each emotion, even if I looked for days. For years.

He reaches out, peeling a piece of hair from my cheek, his fingers lingering. “We should yell it out.”

I blink up at him. “Excuse me?”

“Yell,” he says, laughing now. “It’s a proven technique to release bullshit.”

“We can’t yell. Someone’s going to think we’re being murdered.” I look over my shoulder at Paul, who’s picked his book back up. “We’ll interrupt Paul’s chill vibes.”

“Then we’ll go underwater.”

I stare at him. “Are you okay?”

“No. Are you?”

It’s my turn to laugh. “No.”

“Then get underwater and scream, Shepard.”

But he doesn’t give me a chance to do it myself. He takes my hand and submerges his body, yanking me under with him. His yell is a dull roar in my ears, muffled but powerful, like the first seconds of an earthquake, when it’s just the low groan of the ground shifting underneath your feet. Right before it knocks you off them.

I yell too, first in surprise, then because it feels good. It’s like my first plunge into this water minutes ago—the shock of it, then the numbness that brings relief. The water rushes into my mouth, pushes back out with the force of my breath and voice. With it, I push all of the grief of the last six months, the frustration of the past however many years, the disappointment and pressure I’ve put on myself. For what?

We come up gasping, staring like we’re seeing each other for the first time. Water runs like tears down his cheeks and mine. Theo pants out, “Again.”

I duck under the water with him, leaving my eyes open this time, drifting closer while we scream in tandem, bubbles rushing from our mouths. Theo’s leg winds around mine, and he pulls me close, wrapping an arm around my waist. My heart races as I grab his forearms, as his hand cups my neck. His mouth gets closer, and for a second, I swear it brushes against mine. But it’s just the water between us.