“Ah.” Shyly, Russell buries his hands in his pockets. Up-close Russell Barringer in formal wear might be too much for my brain to handle.
“What my dearest dad is trying to say is that he’s glad you’re here,” she says, giving him the least subtle eyebrow raise in the history of eyebrow raises. “And I think he’s a shoo-in for best speech. Oh—that’s my song!” Elodie makes a show of holding a hand to her ear. “I’ll just leave you two.”
As she flounces away to dance with her friends, Russell shakes his head. “She set us up,” he says, not quite making eye contact with me. “I can’t believe it.”
“Like father, like daughter?”
“Guess so. You’d think we’d have had enough of people meddling in relationships.”
“Matchmaking is an ancient tradition. A Jewish tradition, even.” As if I need it to hold me up, I grasp the edge of the red curtain draped behind me, fiddling with the fabric. “If you don’t want me here, I completely understand. I can leave if—”
“No,” he says, his voice gentle, his gaze finally catching mine. It warms me all the way down to my toes. “Stay. I want you to stay.”
I try to fight the smile threatening to spread across my face. “Okay. I will.”
“You didn’t have to get her anything, by the way.”
“I wanted to.” I tell him about the charms I found on Etsy that made perfect earrings: one that says STAGE RIGHT and another that says STAGE LEFT.
“She’s going to love that. Thank you,” he says. “And—thank you for coming. I’m not sure I said that yet?” The room has very much turned into a party for preteens, the adults self-consciously bobbing their heads to music most of them don’t recognize. “Maybe we could talk somewhere that isn’t blasting ‘My Shot’？”
“Is that not the ideal background music for all serious conversations?”
This gets a soft laugh out of him, which lifts my heart higher in my chest. We have a chance. I just hope I can be brave enough to tell him everything that’s been swirling in my head for the past few weeks.
After Russell checks in with Liv, we slip out into the hall, away from the music, past the coat check and outside. It’s dusk, and out in Lake Washington, boaters are taking advantage of a rare April day that felt a little like summer, with a high near seventy degrees. I didn’t even groan about it when I delivered my forecasts this week. Now that the sun has set, though, I regret leaving my sweater in the car.
“She did great,” I say as we round the JCC building, settling against the wall outside their gymnasium. “A natural.”
“I didn’t know I could be this proud of her. It’s unreal.” He’s quiet for a moment, and then: “You cold?”
I shrug, not wanting to be so obvious about it. Nevertheless, I savor his heat, his scent, when he drapes his herringbone jacket over my shoulders, taking care not to muss my hair. “I haven’t seen this one before. I like it.”
“Thank you,” he says. “Had to break out something special for the occasion.”
As fond as I am of his jackets, we have to move past small talk. “Something occurred to me recently,” I say. “And it’s that I’ve been a complete idiot.”
The frankness of my declaration smooths some of the awkwardness between us, and Russell gives me a half smile. It’s slight, but god, I’ve missed it. “Well. I wouldn’t go that far. And if we’re being fair, I’ve been a bit of an idiot, too.”
I press my shoulders into the bricks. “I keep replaying what happened after Torrance and Seth found out, trying to figure out why it affected me that way. Why I felt it meant our relationship was doomed. And I think I was looking for a way out. A reason this wouldn’t work.” I’d asked Joanna why I sabotaged myself, and now it’s clearer than the most cloudless day. “I was so convinced you’d eventually end it because I wasn’t who you wanted me to be that I decided to do it before you could. Because I thought that would somehow make it hurt less.”
“Did it work?”
“No. It was the most fucking painful breakup I’ve had in my life.” I want to leave zero doubt that it was the wrong thing to do. “You know I’m not used to being so open. So vulnerable. I just . . . didn’t know how to handle it when Torrance and Seth told us what they’d done,” I say. “But that wasn’t the issue, really. I do believe we’d have gotten together one way or another. They didn’t do anything that manipulated our emotions. I was starting to have feelings for you long before they intervened.” God, it seems like so long ago. “When we were swing dancing? That was torture. And before that, back at the bar after the holiday party . . . I kept thinking you were cute.”
And even though we’ve slept together, even though he knows I find him adorable and hot and fucking fantastic, he blushes at this. It absolutely ruins me. “It must have been the jackets.”
“Entirely.”
He shifts, propping one shoulder against the wall so he can face me. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while—really talk to you, not like what happened in the kitchen. But I didn’t want to push you if you weren’t ready,” he says. “I’m so sorry. Everything that happened on the snow day—I could have handled it better, too. I wish I hadn’t told you that. That you weren’t acting like yourself. I’ve replayed it over and over in my head and come up with a hundred better things to say. I can’t believe I said something so wrong.”
“I understand. And I forgive you, ” I say. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry it took me this long to tell you I’m sorry, and I’m sorry I broke down when they found out.”
“You don’t have to apologize for that,” he says, inching closer. “I was serious when I told you I wanted to figure this out together. I still do. And that might mean stumbling through it for a while, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.”
“I can see that now.” If I weren’t already in love with him, his sincerity might send me over the edge. “Thank you. For giving me that time. And—and for letting me come back.”
His eyes on me are warmth and sweetness and a thousand other good things. It’s ridiculous that I ever wondered whether I was in love with him when I know now that I fell a long, long time ago.
“If I can’t hug you right now,” he says, voice shaky, “I might lose it.”
That’s all it takes for every stashed-away emotion to break the surface, and suddenly I’m fighting back tears. “Oh my god, please. Please hug me.” And before he can, I throw my arms around his neck, inhaling his woodsy-citrus-Russell scent, standing on my toes to press a kiss to his ear.
He holds me tightly, steadily, because Russell is always sure of himself. Sure of us.
“The truth is,” I say against his chest, his arms at my waist, “I love that I don’t have to put on a show when I’m with you. I’m still a little closed down with other people, though I’m trying to get better at that, too. But when I’m with you, it’s always been natural. You’ve seen all of me, and that’s terrifying. But taking the risk—it’s so fucking worth it.”