He glances over at me. A hint of embarrassment passes over his features. I meet his eyes, questioning. “Long day of work,” he replies stiffly, “so I skipped it.”
Meredith’s eyes flit to me. I read the curiosity in them.
“Oh, right,” Nathan says, evidently noticing what I have. “Meredith, this is my . . . colleague, Katrina. Katrina, you and Meredith are . . . neighbors.”
Nathan’s explained to me, often half drunkenly, how he didn’t find his confidence or charm until the end of high school. On one night he deeply regretted, he even told me he didn’t have his first kiss until sophomore year of college. It was hard to imagine—until now. Watching him navigate the places of me and Meredith in this conversation, I’m catching remnants of the old, socially skittish Nathan Van Huysen.
“Lovely to meet you,” I say to Meredith genuinely.
She looks between him and me. Understanding lights her eyes. What crosses her face is something like relief, like she’s answered leftover questions from some conversation I wasn’t part of.
“You, too,” she replies. Her voice is warm and a little Southern. “Have a lovely evening.” She shoots Nathan a smile, puts in her headphones, and waves in parting before continuing her jog down the street.
Nathan settles back into his seat, looking lightly relieved.
“She seemed nice,” I say, smirking.
“I don’t really know her,” he replies.
I raise an eyebrow, and Nathan honest-to-god blushes.
“It’s not—it wasn’t like that.” He shifts in his seat, the way he does when I point out he’s used exhilarating three times in one chapter.
“You have been taking longer runs,” I muse. “Now I know where you’ve been disappearing to.”
“Oh my god,” he protests, his voice loud in the humid night. I let myself laugh a little. “I was running. Not—whatever you’re implying.”
I shrug, my laughter having settled into a soft smile. It’s weird to joke with him like this, to enjoy his company. This easy humor feels like it used to. Long before Only Once, when we were friends.
“I’m serious, Katrina. She’s nice, but . . .” He falters. His eyes drop to his lap, his expression newly tender. When he looks up, something is different. The air is sweeter, the night softer, the sound of the waves a gentle whisper. My smile fades, and I feel pleasant heat in my face. The porchlight shines on Nathan’s hair, spinning brown into gold.
The moment stretches, then passes, which feels right.
“Need a refill?” I pick up the bottle of wine.
His glass is only half empty. “Sure,” he says, holding it out to me.
I pour for him. Relaxing into my seat, I glance at him over my drink. “She was cute, though. You could do worse.”
Nathan laughs, no longer uncomfortable. “You’ll never drop this, will you?”
“Oh, never.”
He shakes his head. Quiet comes over us, and I don’t fight the realization it brings. I’m not pretending the way I said we would. I don’t need to. It’s no longer hard working with him, laughing with him, being with him.
I’m happy here.
36
Nathan
I’m in front of Katrina’s door, warm pages in hand. This is probably a terrible idea.
Once we’d finished with dinner and dishes, I returned to my room, showered, and sat down in front of my computer. I felt restless, the same kind of restless I’ve felt every night I didn’t run myself to exhaustion. My fingers itched. My mind was lighting up—not the lightbulb of neatly inspired ideas. More like a house on fire. I wanted to write.
I knew it was my own fault I couldn’t. Refusing to trade pages with Katrina had barred me from writing on my own. I don’t want to work on stuff for my solo career, either. Not now. This book with Katrina is consuming me, gradually becoming the only thing I want to concentrate on.
It’s not like I’d forgotten the reasons not to exchange chapters with her. Everything I’d permitted myself to confess in them before, under cover of literature, led us right to the chasm off of which our relationship had plunged. Still . . . after our dinner, after laughing with Katrina on the porch, sharing unexpected and wonderful moments with the woman who is starting to feel genuinely like a friend again, I wondered if maybe I could permit myself one small step back into what we used to be.
I placed my fingers on the keys lightly, innocuously, like I didn’t want to scare myself off.
The thoughts poured out of me. While I wrote, I reminded myself, I didn’t need to give Katrina the pages I was flying through. I could trash them. My own private transgression into territory I’d forbidden us to enter.