Chapter XII
XII
Teddy
Seeing her in pajamas makes the eight hours in Comfort Plus next to a chatty toddler feel worth it.
Her hair’s slipping out of a braid, and one pant leg is tucked into a pushed-down sock.
This isn’t the Marin I work with every day.
This is the Marin I haven’t been able to get out of my head for the last five years.
I imagined this reunion unfolding a thousand different ways—immediate sex in the kitchen, intruding on someone else having sex with Marin in the kitchen, awkward silence, a curt request to turn around immediately.
My logical brain settled on Marin responding in her signature style, with a lot of questions in a raised tone.
The skillet in her hand? No amount of daydreaming could have prepared me for that.
And her warmth, that feeling of being in her presence—I think I forget what it’s like, as a coping mechanism.
I rock back and forth from heel to toe in the same tennis shoes I was wearing when I hatched this plan. Let her process. Don’t overwhelm her any more than you already have.
She’s speechless, sputtering while she pushes up her sleeves and scans me, suitcase and all, before whisper-shouting, “Teddy, why didn’t you call?
Or email me? Are you here... just to see me?
Or for something else? Why didn’t I know you’d be standing here right now?
” The list of questions comes out in a jumble.
I watch her toggle between what she feels and what she wants to feel.
She sets the skillet down on a nearby credenza.
A smile works its way out of the corner of her perfect mouth, but then she crosses her arms.
She’s apprehensive, but the grin’s winning where she’s trying desperately to stay stern.
There was no point in rehearsing anything. The second I’m in front of Marin, I can only say exactly what I feel. I whisper in her hallway, leaning against the doorframe.
“This is a romantic gesture, Mar. That’s why I didn’t text you my flight confirmation number.” If I could just kiss her, lift the pajama top off her shoulders and make good on where we left our phone conversation off.
She winces at the word “romantic,” but a subtle blush spreads across her face, too, and it’s like she’s read my mind.
Annoyed, she reaches one hand for the doorframe, bristling as she grazes my fingers and decides crossing her arms is much safer.
I watch her run through her response in her head, seeing the way her eyes avoid mine as she constructs a cost-benefit analysis in real time.
“You can’t just show up here and expect me to go back on what I said, Teddy.
What we did wasn’t right. You’re in a relationship.
We work together. I... live here.” A neighbor slips out of their door with the poshest-looking dog I’ve ever seen. They both glare at us.
Marin sighs. “Come in.”
The apartment is somewhere on the opposite end of the spectrum of the rundown place I’ve clung to since the two of us first rolled into New York five years ago.
The ceilings shoot past twenty feet. The walls are wood paneled, even in the bathroom, where I notice a clawfoot tub as we walk by.
An office, without a hideous monitor and computer chair from Amazon.
Throw blankets that look like they were chosen specifically for this space and seem to know it.
It’s intimidating, like every single part of her life.
But the closer I get to the real Marin, the more confident I feel that the rigid organization, the shininess of it all, is just an attempt at control.
Before I can stop myself, I’m picturing our life here, in this apartment.
Marin doesn’t want the house on Fifty-First Street and T-ball games at the same park where Carter and I met, but maybe I could want this.
If it means having her. Before I can examine the thought, fear seeps in.
If I don’t clutch that dream I’ve pinned my future on, where does it leave me?
Be here , I remind myself, a mantra I stole from one of Caroline’s morning meditations months ago.
Marin puts on a kettle, leaning against her spotless marble counter. Her arms seem permanently crossed at this point, so I try to explain.
“It’s over with Caroline,” I tell her, inching toward the kitchen like I’m approaching a cornered animal.
“I broke up with her. Before you sent the email. And I’m not saying that to pressure you or demand that this”—insert erratic pointing between the two of us—“has to become... anything more than it is. But I decided I had to at least create the opportunity to give it a chance.”
Saying it, I feel instantly lighter. Watching her process the news about Caroline, about my unwillingness to ignore this thing we have, I feel hope flutter somewhere in my chest. She doesn’t respond, just carries two mugs that seem to shimmer in the low light over to her dining table.
With her sitting across from me, I’m struck by how little time we’ve spent in the same room.
In contrast to our hours on the phone and the nights I’ve spent alone imagining what this would feel like, there’s been so little actual face-to-face interaction.
And maybe I should be grateful for whatever amount of sober thinking that distance has granted me.
Because her beauty, even at her most calculated and cold, is arresting in real life, and it engulfs me.
Perfect posture. A pajama shirt undone one button too low.
Those cheekbones sprinkled with freckles and the way she runs her finger across her collarbone when she’s thinking.
The way she slides her hair behind her ear.
I wrest my eyes away from her gestures and press my palms into the warm mug.
“Here’s what I’m proposing, and I’m sorry I don’t have a deck to go along with this.
” She nods, not taking the bait on my attempt at a joke.
I’m overcompensating for my uncertainty.
I’m scared to stop talking because she could very well ask me to book the next flight back to New York, so I go on.
“I’ll get a hotel nearby for the week. We’ll hang out as little or as much as you want.
And by the end of the trip, we’ll decide if what happened on the phone that night means anything.
Worst-case scenario: It’s awkward, and we endure next year’s FourVC offsite in Portugal with the help of a lot of wine.
Best-case scenario: Well, I don’t know. That’s kind of what I’m here to find out. ”
My beating heart fills the silence in the room.
It’s high risk, but so was flying out here in the first place.
So was not taking action at all. I’ll do anything she asks.
Even if these ten minutes are all I get with her, it’s proof enough that no other person has ever made me feel this way, and I’m willing to bet no one else ever will.
She uncrosses her arms, and I don’t dare blink.
Marin opens her mouth, pulls an inhale, and presses her head into her hands like they might help her think.
“Teddy, this is a lot to take in.” I brace for impact, certain she’s about to send me right back to the airport. “And I know you’re jet-lagged, so maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but it’s late. Can I make the bed in the office, and we can talk about it in the morning?”
Less enthusiastic a response than kitchen sex, but I can work with it. My entire body relaxes at the thought of at least another day with her. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”
Silently slipping from her seat, Marin pulls some sheets from a burl wood wardrobe, tossing me a towel with her initials embroidered on the side.
In the shower, I try to convince myself that coming here was right, that there’s a world in which I leave Denmark knowing if Marin and I could ever be something.
With a towel around my waist, I discover a cream daybed wrapped in striped sheets with a tiny chocolate placed on my pillow.
I interpret the hotel turndown service as an olive branch and fall asleep grinning.
Marin
Teddy McCarrel, arms splayed and draped off the edges of my guest bed, in my apartment.
It’s like seeing a ghost, except this apparition falls victim to morning wood and audible snoring.
The light falls across his face from where I stand in the doorway.
He’s just so Teddy. Of course he flew here.
Of course he thinks we can power through years of attachment theory work in a week.
Of course his dick is huge. The way his mouth dips open in his sleep, his lips soft.
He’s beautiful. And brash. I’m trying not to stare at the abs that lead to the sturdy hip bones that are somewhere near his cock, straining against a pair of poplin pajama pants.
It registers as a stirring between my legs nonetheless.
He’s borderline otherworldly in this setting.
And I need a coffee before I do something stupid.
“You knew about this?” I ask as sternly and quietly as I can into my phone.
I’m in the kitchen soft-scrambling eggs and doing my best to hold off on the espresso machine until Teddy’s awake.
It’s the middle of the night for Sloane—and technically for him too—but I knew she’d answer.
That getting a call like this is an actual bucket-list item for her, one informed by a steady diet of ’90s rom-coms and an emotionally withholding best friend.
“To be clear, Carter knew about this. I had no idea until Teddy landed. Not that I disapprove. I just think it’s a little reckless on his part.
” Before I can interrupt, she self-edits.
“But charming. Just go easy on him, OK? Or just have the incredible, pent-up sex you both needed to have and then break his heart, I guess. Which is more your speed.”
“Sloane, I don’t like surprises.” I’m shocked at the vulnerability in my voice.
She’s heard it before, about my family, but never my love life.
I lift myself onto the counter, resting my socked foot on the island, pressing my head back into the cabinet, face to the skylight above.
Undulating between excitement and apprehension, part of me wishes I’d never let him into the apartment.
But another part of me can’t believe the luck of him being here.
That he did the bold thing that I never would have done.
“Mar, babe, I know you don’t. And I know you have a whole plan about marrying a wealthy eighty-five-year-old in New York and never coming back to the Midwest ever again.
I get it. But there’s a man asleep in your apartment who adores you almost as much as I do, despite you giving him almost nothing to work with over the last five years. ” She’s right, per usual.
“You know I can’t end up with Teddy,” I sputter before I can stop myself. “It can’t be that easy. Anything that easy comes with a catch.”
“I’m not your therapist, although, you know, Jessica is doing God’s work.
But I will remind you that maybe some things can be easy.
We were easy, right? You took a chance on me, and look at us.
Try to go easy on yourself too. And maybe open yourself up to the slight possibility that Teddy could be the love of your life? Just an idea.”
I grumble out something about calling her later, and I hate that she can tell she made headway with me. That she’ll be too excited about it to fall back asleep right away.
I send a note to the office, letting my partners know I’ll be taking the day, which they’ll all be pleased by.
It’s been a year or so since I took a proper vacation, and I’ve grown accustomed to stacking my weekend with the kind of appointments normal people take during work hours.
It’s a badge of honor to leave my unlimited PTO untouched.
Though I suspect the badge is revoked as soon as I spend any time examining why that matters to me.
Lounging on my sofa, desperate for coffee and further explanation from Teddy, I start to wonder what mornings would feel like if I didn’t start working from my phone in bed.
I could read a book from the pile I’ve accumulated from my local bookstore or finish a crossword from the care package my mom sent.
But the stillness starts to creep me out.
I slip on my Levi’s, a massive sweater, and the Max Mara coat I bought myself with my last year-end bonus and grab my keys.
The cold air works its magic, and I’m determined to take at least some of Sloane’s advice.
On my bike, pedaling to Andersen & Maillard, it feels good to get into my body.
To remember I have limbs and lungs, that I’m not just a brain and the worry that comes with it.
I order a cortado. Two sticky buns. A loaf of sourdough.
More espresso beans. I’m on my way back, certain that despite the time change, Teddy will be awake, and now I’m ready for him.