Kate accepts the muffin, then bites into it, smiling, her gaze dancing over me.
“What?” I ask, smiling back at her, adjusting her laundry bag on my shoulder.
“You’re just really sweet,” she says, shrugging. “I feel spoiled.”
I bite into my butter croissant and say around my bite, “I have bad news for you, Kate. I’m just getting started, spoiling you.”
She rolls her eyes as she bites into her muffin again, but a pretty blush sweeps up her cheeks, and she can’t hide her smile.
I stare at her, feeling my heart pound, hard and feverish. God, I love her. I love her.
And I do want to spoil her. I want to surprise her with plane tickets to wherever her heart desires and leave behind work, devoting myself only to those smiles and blushes and learning all the scattered, lovely things her brain notices and absorbs.
I want to wake up every day to her smoky laugh and hard kisses. I want her fierce intensity and lung-burning sprint races for the most unexpected things. I want to sleep curled around her and talk while she bathes and cook with her in the kitchen. I want to stare into those stormy eyes and feel the thrill of knowing there’s so much I already know about her and so much more that I don’t, this dizzying cocktail of memory and mystery.
I watch her smile up at me, her hand finding mine and lacing our fingers together. And I feel the world tip beneath me.
I want to give Kate everything she deserves. I want to promise her and ask for everything, too. I hope we’ll figure out how that’s possible for two people who live so differently, that somehow our lives can meet halfway.
Kate squeezes my hand and smiles up at me, reminding me what’s changed—what all this is about.
I don’t have answers yet, but I don’t have to find them on my own. Kate and I will do that together, hand in hand. One step at a time.
? THIRTY-FIVE ?
Kate
“I’ll take that.” Stopped outside my apartment door, I reach for the massive bag of now clean laundry from Christopher’s shoulder. He doesn’t seem inclined to give it up.
“I’m fine carrying it,” he says.
I blink at him, weighing my options. My room—Juliet’s room, where I’m staying—looks like a tornado hit it. Even with most of my dirty laundry scraped into a bag, it’s still a wreck of, among many other random odds and ends, half-drunk water cups and snack bar wrappers because snack bars are about all I managed to eat this week. The last time he saw my room was that paintball night, and its status was borderline hide-from-anyone-whose-good-opinion-I-value, but by the time he’d tucked me in, it was dark and he left before sunrise, so I got away with it.
Today, in the light of late morning, which pours into that bedroom, it’ll be like tugging down a microscope on my mess and shoving it in his face.
No, thank you.
Christopher’s home is worn around the edges and sweetly dated—all of which I adore—but for all the things others might think could use improving, its tidiness and cleanliness are not among them. Christopher is a neatnik. He likes doing things like wiping down his fancy coffee machine after each use and deploying a lightweight shiny vacuum to pick up crumbs in the kitchen’s corners after cooking. He voluntarily did my laundry, for Christ’s sake. He folded everything. Even my underwear.
My high-waisted, once-white but now dingy-dishwater, grandma underwear. That’s embarrassing enough.
But Christopher is so stubborn, and I’m realizing that with my good old hiss-and-flex-the-claws days behind me, what this situation calls for is something we’re just starting to figure out: compromise.
Resting against the door to the apartment, I attempt a casual lean and paste on what I hope is an ingratiating smile. “I propose a deal.”
Christopher arches his eyebrows, resettling the massive duffel’s strap on his shoulder like it’s full of paper products instead of my entire laundered wardrobe. “I’m listening.”
“You may carry my bag inside the apartment.”
His eyebrows lift higher. “And . . . ?”
“And that’s it. You may carry it in, and then you may carry it no further, most definitely not inside my room.”
His eyes narrow. He purses his lips, thinking this over. “Your terms are close to but not quite what I’m looking for. I propose a negotiation.”
“Nope.”
He sighs, shaking his head. “Rookie mistake,” he mutters.
I’m annoyed by that and turn toward the door, about to unlock it when Christopher stops me with a hand gently circling my wrist. “Hey.” His voice is quiet, the brief contentious fire between us doused.