Facing the nozzle, I close my eyes, enjoying the spray running down me. When I hear the door softly close, I smile. Moments later, I feel Nathan behind me. I spin to face him, raising one eyebrow.
“What? I have writer’s block, too,” he says.
I laugh. “Sure you do.” Nathan rolls his eyes, but his hands run down my back. I sink into the feeling, letting my own hands run up his chest. Though I’m still fearful of dwelling on my own thoughts, of one I’m certain—I’ve never felt this way before. “Tell me something,” I say softly.
“Hmm?” he hums close to my ear.
“What was it like to write on your own again?”
He pulls back to look into my eyes. It’s several seconds before he speaks. “It felt . . . incomplete. I don’t know how many times I had to fight the instinct to send you a chapter, how often I thought, Katrina will do this scene better—I’ll leave it to her. Only to remember.” His eyes dim.
His words wind into me so deeply, I nearly forget his hands cradling me under the rivulets of water. “You don’t need me, though,” I point out. “You wrote something wonderful on your own.”
The light returns to his eyes, electric. “Oh, I need you.” He steps closer, pressing himself up to me, showing me exactly how much. I can’t help being impressed. Pleased, too, knowing what it promises. “What about you?” His question is soft. “Did you really write nothing these last years?”
I settle into his embrace, resting my head on the plane of his chest. I couldn’t compel myself to put ideas on paper, where they could be read, where they would’ve started to want things from me like completion or recognition. “I wrote,” I say, “just only in my head.”
His fingers find my temple, brushing gently. “To be in there,” he murmurs.
“You already are,” I say in a heartbeat. “Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Nathan, I—”
There’s plenty we have to discuss, the past hiding underneath what we have now. We’ve built a bridge over the high cliffs where we’ve stood, separated for four years. While it stretches the gap, it’s shaky, new, and the drop is long. Our past is still there, waiting for the slightest wrong step.
Nathan crushes his lips to mine. I know what he wants. I always know what he wants, can predict what he’ll like, can hear his voice in my head. When I write, and not only when I write. I hear it now. The past can wait. I fall into the kiss, letting him know I agree.
We stay under the water, enjoying, exploring while the minutes slip past us.
It’s when Nathan’s lips lower to my neck, his fingers trailing down my stomach, that the idea sparks in my mind. I step back sharply. Nathan watches me with concern. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his voice unguarded.
I shake my head. Working through the idea, checking every facet, making sure it fits, I finally decide—it’s perfect. I smile. Oh, this is good. “I figured out the problem with chapter thirty,” I say, speaking quickly. “It’s the setting. We put it in the wrong place.”
Nathan laughs. “Katrina, seriously? I do not want to discuss chapter thirty right now.” He looks playfully indignant. “Is that what you were thinking about? I’m insulted.”
“I wasn’t! I swear,” I insist. “In fact, I was so not thinking about it that I figured it out.”
“So you’re saying . . .” Something smug settles over his expression. “I distracted and relaxed you enough you got over your writer’s block?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“Intriguing.” He fixes his eyes on me, delight and mischief cascading into them. “Well, here’s to more writer’s block in the future. I’ll be happy to help whenever.” When I shove his shoulder lightly, he pulls me closer. “Tell me you’re not even thinking of leaving this shower to rewrite chapter thirty.”
I reach down. “I can wait.”
55
Nathan
We go out for dinner. Katrina and me, going out for dinner. Except it’s not just hitting pause on the day’s work to refuel. It’s a date. It’s kind of a first date, in fact.
We’ve done plenty of things that looked like, or even felt like, dates in the past. I’ve spent a small fortune on the hipster-café coffee I’ve consumed in this woman’s presence. Once in Italy, needing two hours of not talking to each other, we went to the movies, not realizing there wouldn’t be subtitles. We stayed and enjoyed the cinematography. On the walk home, we pitched each other ridiculous ideas to fill the gaps in the plot we hadn’t understood.