“And you to me.”
They both sipped.
“I decided last night I’m officially done,” Nick said, setting down his glass. “Casanova’s gonna be Brock’s last project.”
“Really?”
Nick waved a hand. “I’m ready. And I couldn’t have a higher note to go out on.” He smiled. “Besides, Sarah Westholme’s spoiled me for any other co-narrator and she’s retreating back into the mists of retirement.”
Sewanee watched the bubbles rise up in her glass. “I actually don’t know about that.” Nick quirked his head at her and she met his gaze. “I liked it. I liked doing Romance.”
Nick put his hand over the top of her glass. “Don’t drink any more of this, I think they put something in it.”
Sewanee chuckled, shrugged. “I’m serious.”
“But you hate the HEA bullshit.”
At his skeptical look, she took back her glass. “I mean, yes. I hated the premise that all we have to do is endure the twists and trope-y turns of life and then, bam, we get rewarded. Ridiculous.”
“Indeed.”
“But recently I’ve been thinking . . .” She looked out at the piazza. “I haven’t got this totally figured out, but I think my problem was that it promised something unattainable. We can now rest assured these people will go forth and live happily ever after. But, really, HEA comes from fairy tales and fairy tales end with: and they lived happily ever after. Lived. Not live. Past tense, not present. And that works for me.”
Nick’s brow crinkled. He leaned forward. “Sorry, the tense change made it work for you?”
“Granted, I’m a word nerd, but yeah.” He still looked confused so she leaned forward, too. “To live HEA is to say, from today onward life will be happy. I mean, how can you know that? Shit happens. Over and over. It’s what Stu was saying at dinner, that’s what got me thinking about this. That life isn’t linear. About that incredible dish being a plate of failure.” Sewanee took a sip. “I don’t think you can know if you lived happily ever after until your life’s over.” She set down her glass. “Maybe that’s why your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die. So you can see the movie from beginning to end and know.”
Nick dropped his chin in his hand and gazed at her. He tapped his temple. “Is it always like this in there? Does your neck get sore from holding that big brain up all day long?”
She snorted. “Anyway, it’s not ridiculous. It’s not bullshit. It is possible. It’s not fantasy or reality. A happily ever after is built by both, together, over a lifetime.”
Nick took a moment. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking the exact same thing.” Sewanee laughed, but he said, “No, seriously, it’s almost exactly what I was talking to Stu about on the boat ride back to St. Mark’s.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Emerson and dolphins.”
Sewanee chuckled.
“After a thrilling dissertation on the striped dolphin’s migratory patterns and mating irregularities he brought up that Emerson quote: it’s not the destination; it’s the journey. And he said Emerson was ass backwards like me. That it is the destination and not the journey. Because only after you’ve arrived can you judge the merit of the journey. But then he said”–and here, Nick dropped into his dead-on Stu impression–“it probably wasn’t Emerson anyway, it was probably some bumper sticker writer and no one should take advice from a bumper sticker, or a has-been sneaker-maker for that matter, and did I happen to notice how each wine came in a different-shaped glass at dinner?”
Sewanee laughed, then, imitating her mom, said, “Stuuuuu.”
Nick laughed as well. “I think those two have a shot at HEA.” He sat back, took another sip, and assessed her. “So more Romance, eh?”
Sewanee sipped, too. “Maybe. Not necessarily narrate. Maybe direct some Duets. Maybe find the next Brock McNight.”
Nick had a particular look on his face.
She reached over, patted his forearm. “Aww, don’t worry. You’ll always be my first.”
He caught her hand as she pulled it back. He brought it to his mouth. Ran his lips from her wrist up along the side of her pinky. Kissed the tip of her finger. Then the center of her palm. Breathed in. “Done playing games?”
Her face opened like a flower. “Yes.”