First floor. Kaboom.
Second floor. Kaboom.
Third floor. It’s a drum line all the way down the hall to his door.
This is it.
I have a plan. If I walk in there and it looks like Dax’s old place, it means everything worked out as it was supposed to. His store is still a huge success. I haven’t screwed it all up for nothing. If it looks like it did in the other reality, well…I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do in that case.
I slip my key into the lock, but as I go to push the door open, a last-minute thought crosses my mind and I freeze in panic.
What if Dax decided to come home early? What if he’s in there now? What if he has continued dating that vet’s assistant for the last month and is half in love with her already?
They could be in there.
They could be naked.
His big beautiful penis could be in her magical vagina and I could be walking into something I’ll never, ever be able to unsee.
The idea makes me want to throw up.
I knock. “Hello, it’s me, Gemma. Everybody decent in there?”
There’s no answer. Still, I cover my eyes as I push open the door. “Still Gemma here. I’m coming in. Speak now or forever make things awkward.”
I splay my fingers enough to see his far wall. The painting he bought at last year’s Art Gallery of Hamilton auction hangs on the wall and there are no naked bodies.
This is a good sign.
I continue my half-hindered glance around the room.
The big screen he insisted was an integral pièce de résistance for any bachelor pad is on top of the Pottery Barn console. The tan leather couch that cost as much as I take home after taxes in a month is sitting on top of the genuine Persian rug we drove all the way to Toronto to buy from a guy who only sells them by appointment from a warehouse in the furniture district.
These are all very good signs.
I breathe out a long sigh of relief. He’s okay. The store is okay. I made the right choice.
As my heartbeat returns to an even, steady rhythm, I settle into the second task I came here to do.
Grabbing a juice pitcher, I fill it with water and get to work on the plants along the windowsill, then fill the jug a second time to tend the plants in his bedroom.
But as I step through the door, my heart completely stops.
His bed sits perfectly made. Not a single crinkle in the sheets.
Even though he’s supposedly been gone for days, the room still smells like him. Irish Spring soap and the faint scent of his cologne.
I’m struck by this terrible feeling. Like longing or homesickness or grief. It’s hollow. As if someone has scooped out all of the good memories from my chest and thrown them splat on the floor in front of me.
See this? It isn’t yours anymore.
I have this urge to climb into his bed and suck in all the Dax-like smells that still linger on his pillow. To slide between his sheets and close my eyes and pretend he’s there beside me. As if at any moment he’ll roll over, lace his fingers through mine, and remind me that we’re forever.
However, my tortured thoughts are interrupted by the sound of keys in the door, and my fight-or-flight mammalian brain takes over until it dawns on me that thieves don’t use keys. But Dax does.
Every cell inside of me is on edge as the lock flips, and I steel myself for the conversation I’m about to have. The one I should have had years ago.
He doesn’t notice me at first. He’s too absorbed in the actions of throwing down his leather weekend bag and tossing his keys into the little porcelain dish on top of his bookshelf. I stare at him from the doorway like a creep. Eyes appreciating, heart longing, everything below that lusting after the man who has always been my other half.
“Hey.” The floor creaks beneath my feet as I step forward. Dax whips around at the sound, grabbing a shoehorn with his hand and raising it above his head.
“Jesus Christ, Gems. You scared the shit out of me.”
I hold up the still-full water pitcher. “I’m here for the plants. You asked me to—”
“Yeah, sorry. I know. I was just thinking about you, and then you appeared out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure you were real for a second.”
“You were thinking about me?”
He drops his eyes to his bag, which he shoves to the side with the toe of his boot. “Yeah. I was up north. Needed a few days to clear my head. But I was going to call you when I got in. And then you were here.”
“I’ve been thinking about you too.”
There’s a sudden tension in the air. It’s heavy and thick. As if we both know that a conversation is about to happen that will change everything. It becomes a game of chicken. The first one to talk lays their heart on the table. Open. Exposed. Where anything can happen. And I don’t hesitate for a second to do it.