He rubs the stubble I was just noticing. “It’s just easy to say things you don’t mean, and it’s impossible to write anything but the truth.”
“We write fiction, Nathan,” I say gently. “It’s not real.”
“It is. How can you say what we write isn’t real?” The intensity in his voice feels like an answer for the years of resentment he harbored for me. I can see now how we were standing on opposite sides of the truth, each of us alone. “Kat, really.” He sighs, softening. “Is now the best time for this?”
“I’m done living my life waiting for the best time.” It’s a new decision, one I’m proud of.
Nathan doesn’t flinch from what I’m saying. He looks me right in the eye. “Fine,” he says. “Here’s the whole truth. I thought I was over you. When you tossed me out of your life, I told myself you destroyed us. I believed it every day until I came back here. Writing about how pieces of love survive even the cleanest break, how you can never escape someone you gave your whole self to . . . Katrina, I don’t know. I don’t know if I wrote myself into this book or if the book uncovered something within me.”
He drops his head into his hands.
Sliding out of the armchair, I don’t fight the pull I feel toward him. My legs don’t shake as I approach him. He doesn’t look at me. Or maybe he won’t. I need him to see me, though. I need us both to face this.
I sink to my knees in front of him.
I tentatively touch his arm. Finding me close, he startles. He doesn’t pull away from me, doesn’t move, doesn’t dare breathe. “Maybe it’s time we find out what exactly is real here,” I say, my voice hushed.
His eyes dip to my lips, betraying him before he speaks. “Katrina. Kat . . .”
From sitting back on my heels, I rise onto my knees, my face close to his, my hands resting on the cool fabric of his pants. He spreads his thighs just wide enough for me to press myself between his legs. “I need to know,” I murmur. Remembering our night in Miami, I don’t close the distance.
I don’t have to. I feel his resolve snap. His hands cupping my face, he crushes his lips to mine, every single word we’ve ever written prologue to this touch.
I wind a hand into his hair, knowing it’s a favorite detail of his, one he’s sent me in scenes like this one. I feel him exhale into me in pleasure, his lips sliding over mine. In return, he settles into long, deep kisses, his tongue brushing mine in only the suggestion of more. I smile, recognizing my own descriptions plagiarized on my mouth. We know exactly how the other likes to be touched. We’ve read each kiss, studied every caress. The result is the feeling of a first kiss with someone you’ve kissed a hundred times.
The whisper of the ocean sounds like a roar when I pull back. It’s not because I don’t want to keep going. I just know we shouldn’t, not tonight, with Chris’s departure still fresh, with his ring still on my dresser upstairs.
“Real?” Nathan’s voice is a rasp.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Nathan nods. His hair sticks up where my hand gripped him only seconds ago. “Where does this leave us?”
I stand, smoothing down my skirt. “I . . . have no idea.”
We regard each other for a few moments, contemplating what just happened, neither of us speaking. It’s quiet, not forebodingly, yet not quite comfortably. It’s just the quiet of before. Finally, Nathan’s lips twitch up. “We’ve been working without an outline so far. Why stop now?”
I start to smile. “No reason I can figure. Good night, Nathan.”
I step toward the stairs. “See you in the morning,” I hear him say behind me.
I feel my smile spread as I climb the steps. His words promise a world of possibilities. I let myself imagine each one, sketching out our future like a plot without an ending.
48
Nathan
? FOUR YEARS EARLIER ?
I watch the water under the clear night sky. The beach is empty, unsurprisingly. It’s only me, sitting on the sand. The glassy ocean reflects the moon, ribbons of moonlight shimmering with the small ripples on the surface. There’s something unnerving in the calm of being here, just myself, with this endless expanse. For the moment, it’s mine, and yet I know it’s very much not.
We finished the book today. Months of writing, outlining, discussion, and debate—ended with the final period on the final sentence. The white space following it no longer felt demanding. Only right. The ceiling fan spinning lazily, sunlight slanting in through the shutters, we were done. The book is everything I hoped it would be, the perfect mirror of what we’d envisioned in our heads.