He double takes at the tone of my voice. “It wasn’t that bad, Shepard, and we were headed home anyway. You looked like a beautiful raccoon.”
God, this asshole. He makes my chest hurt. “I looked ridiculous.”
“All right, point taken,” he says, his mouth pulling up. “I’ll be sure to alert you next time.”
I nod, swigging again.
“Noelle.” When I look over at him, he’s watching me carefully, his expression morphing from amusement to concern.
“Theo,” I volley back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
For a beat, the only sound between us is crickets chirping. Finally, he says, “Tell me the truth.”
Those words hit me somewhere deep. It’s a more intense version of Tell Me a Secret; the stakes are so much higher.
I’m afraid the bubble is going to pop when I least expect it, and I’ve been through that before. I never want to feel that loss of control again, so I put my finger to it, and I pop it myself. This is my life, and if it’s ugly and he hates it, he was going to walk away eventually anyway.
“You don’t believe what Flor said, but my reading was spot-on. The big expectations that turned into none, Gram being my guidance when I was floundering, and how I just . . . felt uprooted when she died.”
I take him in as I set my wineglass down—the stern set of his eyebrows, the concern glowing in his eyes just below, the way he’s leaning in toward me, ready to catch every word. And there, written all across his face, how he cares for me.
“I don’t have a job,” I say. “I lied to you when I said I did. I got laid off five months ago, and I’m pretty positive it was just a more humane way to fire me. I mean, it wasn’t my dream job by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve never had that. That photography assistant job decimated my self-esteem, and the rest of my professional career has been underwhelming. Then I can’t hold on to some mediocre job I didn’t even like?”
His eyebrows fly up to his hairline, and he sits back, his mouth parting.
I continue, gaining steam. “I couldn’t tell you, so I let you believe this was a vacation instead. I didn’t have a choice at the time. All we ever did was battle against each other to be the best, and thankfully we didn’t see each other for years, so you had no idea how easily you leapfrogged me. But then you caught me at my lowest moment while you were at your highest. I mean, god. Forbes? Really?”
Hurt flashes across his face, but he schools it immediately. “That’s why you didn’t tell me? Because you thought I’d look down on you for not being successful? When who the fuck knows what that really means, anyway? You look at me and think that’s the only way success looks, but I promise you it’s not.”
“You cofounded an entire company, Theo.”
“It’s not that straightforward,” he argues.
I can’t help thinking of Flor’s words earlier: your world is crashing down around you. But if he doesn’t believe that, it can’t be true.
“I’ve been living in my childhood bedroom turned Peloton studio since January, if you want to talk straightforward. For better or worse, I wanted to save face in front of you. It’s not like I knew when we met up that first time that eventually we’d be . . .” I gesture between us. “Whatever this is.”
“Whatever this is,” he repeats blankly, running a hand over his jaw. “Right.”
“I’ve been job hunting, but it’s so bleak, and I’m still scared of pursuing photography. It feels safe here, but what happens when I go home?” I let out a breath. “What if I fail again?”
“You’re already not failing,” Theo says. “That thing with the Tahoe resort—”
“What if that’s it?”
“What if it’s not?” he shoots back. “You’re talented. You know you are. And holy shit, fine, so you had to take a breather after one of the most important people in your life died. So you got laid off from a job you hated anyway, and you haven’t quite found your place. You tried to make a go at photography years ago and it didn’t work that time. Do you think that’s an indictment on who you are as a person, that you’re struggling? Do you think that I’d look at you now and think she’s going through a rough time, so nah, she’s not for me?”
I shrug helplessly. “Historical data goes against me. You dated a woman who worked for NASA.”
“And you mean more to me in two weeks than she did in nearly a year, you little Google stalker,” he snaps out, genuinely affronted.
My heart takes off as that settles between us. He sees my eyes go saucer-wide and lets out a frustrated grunt.
“I said it earlier today and I’ll say it again—you have no idea how amazing you are. I’ll give it up to that psychic, because she had one thing right: you’ve been through hell losing your grandma. Maybe I didn’t know her personally or see your relationship play out, but I know what you had with her. I recognize it in my own relationship with my granddad.” His voice wobbles, and he clears his throat over it. “The way you talk about her, the way you’re honoring her by taking this trip. Hell, the way you made the decision to just go and allowed me and Granddad to tag along. We’re getting to create memories together while you’re still grieving the fact that you don’t have any memories left to make. You don’t fucking know, Noelle, the scope of what you’ve done.”
Just like that, my eyes are leaking again, and this time he reaches over to wipe the tears away.
“Have you been reading the comments on your videos?” he asks, his eyes locked with mine. “The ones where people say they’ve called their grandparents, their parents, their people to tell them they love them because they’ve realized how lucky they are? The ones where people say this story you’re telling is helping them with their own grief?”
“Yes,” I whisper. Those are the ones that heal me the most.
“You think that’s not success? You think I don’t look at you and wonder what you see in me?” His thumb moves down to my cheek, and he follows it with his eyes. “You think I don’t watch you taking pictures or editing them on your computer with that scrunchy little face you make”—he grins when I let out a choked laugh—“and sit in awe of the work you do? How people connect with it? Because I promise you, I do. If you could see yourself through my eyes, your head wouldn’t fit through the door.”
It’s not my head that’s grown, it’s my heart, suddenly too big for my chest. It presses painfully at my ribs, struggling to get out so it can plop itself in Theo’s hands.
“Don’t put yourself up against me,” he says. “I’m going to be the one who doesn’t measure up.”
“That’s not true,” I say, insulted on his behalf.
“It is.” There’s something searching in his voice, in the way he looks at me. He inhales, as if he’s going to say more.
But instead he lets out a pained, frustrated sigh, then grazes his lips over the corner of my mouth, moving to the other side. I close my eyes, parting my lips to let him in if he wants it.