Chapter 3
NOVA
I drove to Cherry Hill without needing anything specific. I got into my car and left because sitting in my living room rereading the same five words was not going to produce a different answer no matter how many times I tried it.
Date was good. Talk tomorrow?
I had already read it enough to know where the pauses were, could hear exactly how he would have said it, the slight drop in his voice on the second sentence, the way it would have almost made me laugh if he’d been standing there saying it out loud, and I was not interested in doing that analysis surrounded by records that had been working overtime all morning.
I tried music first, which was my mistake. The record I put on to fill the quiet turned out to be a love song, and the next one followed it like it had something to prove. By the third, I realized I had somehow built a full set I was not prepared to sit through, so I turned everything off and left.
Auntie Rhonda was still on her annual church retreat in Hilton Head, the same group of women, the same wide-brimmed hats, the same energy of people who had earned the right to rest. She had sent a picture that morning, standing on a pier like she owned the water, and a message that said the crab legs were extraordinary, thinking of none of you.
Which meant no Sunday dinner. No Jerome. No Simone stopping by unannounced with commentary I did not ask for but usually needed. Just me and a house that had gotten entirely too quiet for what I was trying not to think about.
So I drove across the bridge because movement felt more useful than sitting still and pretending I was fine.
Norden in Cherry Hill understood aspiration in a very specific way, the space between who you were and the version of your life that looked close enough to reach if you stood in the right room long enough.
It was one of those massive, mazelike furniture stores built to resemble a life in progress, where you followed arrows through fully staged rooms and came out convinced you needed things you had not considered ten minutes earlier.
You moved through curated versions of that life, kitchens that suggested you cooked because you wanted to, bedrooms where no one ever lost their place in a book, living rooms arranged with a confidence that implied every decision had already been made and settled.
I moved through it without a basket or a plan, letting the layout carry me instead of trying to direct it.
I was somewhere between a living room setup that suggested healthy communication and a dining space that implied people ate at the same time every night when I saw him. He wasn’t wandering. That was the first thing I noticed.
Deion stood in front of two chairs with a measuring tape in his hand and a folded sheet of paper poking out of his back pocket. He studied the chair like it had already failed a test it didn’t know it was taking.
“The seat depth is off,” I said.
He turned, recalibrating quickly, his eyes moving over me once like he was placing me in the room before responding. “What are you doing here?”
“Managing my emotions through furniture,” I said, stepping up beside him. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it.” He shifted his weight slightly, one hand coming up to his beard, not quite scratching, just resting there like the thought was still forming.
I glanced at the paper he pulled from his back pocket, then at the measuring tape still looped in his hand. “You’re measuring.”
“I need it to fit,” he said simply.
“You’re serious,” I said, before I could decide if I was going to say it out loud.
He didn’t answer that directly. His hand dropped from his beard, attention shifting back to the chair like that was the part that mattered. “It’s time.”
That was all he gave me, but it was enough.
“You didn’t have to say anything was wrong,” I said, lowering myself into the chair and then immediately standing again. “You’re evaluating it like it disappointed you.”
I moved to a third option he hadn’t touched, testing it properly this time, feet planted, back against the frame, letting the chair settle before I decided anything about it.
“This one.”
“I wasn’t looking at that one.” His head tilted just a fraction, attention shifting without resistance.
“I can tell.”
I adjusted slightly, paying attention to where the chair held and where it gave.
“You don’t want something that swallows a person,” I said, glancing at him. “You’re going to have kids in here who don’t know if they want to stay yet. If the chair makes the decision for them, they’re gone.”
I leaned back again, testing the balance, then nodded once. “This one lets them decide.”
He stepped in and sat, not easing into it but settling like he was placing someone there and checking the fit. His hand came back to his beard briefly, eyes moving across the frame, the angles, the spacing.
“Yeah,” he said after a second, quieter now, like he had finished the thought internally. “Okay.”
I moved to stand behind the chair, peeking over his shoulder at his notes, noticed he’d jotted down two chairs for listening station, and made an executive decision. “Get four.”
He looked up at me, that brief pause again before he spoke. “Why four?”
“Because Jerome is eventually going to break one,” I said, folding my arms. “You know how he is and I’m not interested in watching you pretend to be surprised when it happens.”
He held my gaze for a second, that pause again like he was deciding whether to argue or accept it.
“Jerome has never broken a chair,” he said, calm but unconvinced.
“Jerome hasn’t met this chair yet,” I said.
The corner of his mouth moved before he could stop it.
“Four,” he said, like the decision had already settled.
We moved through the store without discussing it, falling into the same beat we always fell into, where one of us slowed and the other adjusted without needing to acknowledge it. We stayed just within each other’s space, not touching, but close enough that the distance never felt accidental.
“She asked about you,” he said.
I picked up a throw from a nearby display, running my hand across the fabric before setting it back.
“Why?”
“I told her about WaxCon,” he said. “How we went together.”
I glanced at him. “What did you say?”
“That you’re one of my closest friends.”
I nodded once. Closest friends. He wasn’t wrong, as that was definitely an accurate way to put it. Complete, even, but not helpful.
“I hope I sounded charming.”
“She said you sounded like trouble.”
“Oh?”
“The good kind,” he added, adjusting one of the items in the cart like it needed straightening.
I didn’t respond. He held up two throws a second later, one practical, one better.
“That one feels safe,” I said, stepping closer to look at both. “The other one is the one I’d go with if I were you.”
He watched me for half a second, then placed the better option in the cart without comment. I grabbed the same one and tossed it into his cart for myself.
We kept moving, and somehow we ended up back in seating again, in a section where two chairs had been angled toward each other like a conversation had already been planned. We sat without testing them this time, just settling into the space like it had already decided what it was for.
“You should get both of these,” I said.
He glanced over. “I only need one more.”
“Just one?”
“That’s what I said, Nova.” His tone didn’t shift, just settled there, steady and already decided. “I don’t know if the area can hold more than that right now.”
“Oh.”
Something in me stilled at that, quiet but immediate.
I looked at the setup again. Two chairs, angled toward each other, close enough to suggest something that stayed.
Not passing through. Not temporary. He had already figured out what fit.
One more. I let my gaze settle on the second chair, the one we were not talking about anymore.
The one that had been part of the arrangement until it wasn’t.
It wasn’t about seating. It was the shape of it. The way it read without explanation. Two places, accounted for. Or one, if that was all you needed. I leaned back slightly, like that might help me hear it differently. It didn’t.
There had been a time when something like this would have been a conversation. Not because he couldn’t decide on his own, but because I was part of how he decided. I didn’t get added after. I was already there, somewhere in the middle of it, before anything was set.
I looked at the second chair again. And for a second, quick enough that I could have denied it if I needed to, it felt like I was looking at a version of his life that didn’t require me to exist in it. I sat up.
“You should get both anyway,” I said.
He looked at me, not pushing back, just waiting. “Why?”
I opened my mouth, already knowing I wasn’t going to say what I meant, and closed it again before anything useful could come out.
“Resale value,” I said. “People usually buy seating in pairs.”
That wasn’t true, and it wasn’t the point. What I meant was I didn’t like how complete it looked without the second chair. I didn’t like how easy it was to imagine him settling into something that didn’t leave space for anything beyond what he had already decided.
I wasn’t saying that out loud in a furniture store on a Sunday. So resale value it was.
He held my gaze a second longer than necessary, steady enough that I knew he had heard something underneath it even if he chose not to name it.
“I’ll get both,” he said.
“Good.”
He nodded once. “Because of the resale value.”
“Exactly.”
We cut through the marketplace side of Norden where everything was stacked like you were supposed to already have a plan before you picked anything up. Open bins, shelves just high enough to test your confidence, rows of kitchen pieces that looked better once you committed to them.
I slowed near the glassware without saying anything, and he adjusted with me the same way he always did, matching pace without asking what I had seen.