Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
YURI
I’m feeling significantly more human by the time I step out of Cooper’s bathroom (I guess it’s my bathroom now too) with damp hair, fresh clothes, and my skin scrubbed clean of all the dirt, salt, and microbes I managed to collect last night and this morning.
“Coop?” I step into the kitchen to find it empty.
His place is just as small as mine, with only three rooms, so it would be hard to miss him.
Guess he must have wandered off. I chuckle to myself for thinking of Cooper almost like one of those half-feral cats you can’t keep track of no matter how hard you try.
He’s definitely the kind who always finds his way home though, so I’m not about to add his whereabouts to my list of concerns just because I moved my clothes into the top two drawers of his dresser this morning.
I peek through all the kitchen cabinets, making a mental to-do list: clean out the pantry and refrigerator, make a list of missing staples and easy meals I can throw together on low energy days or when I’m starving after a late shift, probably wipe out the pantry and the refrigerator because I doubt Coop has ever thought to do it…
I’m still adding to my mental list as I start making a pot of coffee.
I’ll need to let Devil know that I’m moving out of the rental too.
I press the button to get the coffee maker going and start opening drawers in search of a piece of paper and a pen.
I need to write some of this stuff down since my list just keeps getting longer.
I sputter a laugh as I open the first drawer.
I should have known his junk drawers would have a major emphasis on junk.
A bag of rubber bands, a broken yo-yo, a dozen pens but every single one of them is out of ink, a bunch of seashells, a handful of lighters I’m willing to bet are all out of fuel.
No paper though, and no luck in the other two drawers either.
One of them is a silverware drawer that’s equal parts silverware and sauce packets (hot sauce, soy sauce, mustard).
“I’m gonna love you through this, Coop,” I mutter to myself, still laughing, as I close the third drawer and add “organize drawers” and “buy a notepad and pens” to my growing mental list.
The coffee maker beeps, so I open the cabinet and grab the first mug I find.
I pull it down and pause. I recognize this mug, even though the image on the front is fading from years of washing.
It’s a picture of a proton with the words “Be positive.” It’s my mug.
I stare at it for way longer than necessary with a dopey grin on my face and a happy, fluttery feeling in my chest. All those years he supposedly didn’t think about me, he was drinking coffee out of my mug, which he had to have specifically packed and brought with him. What a beautiful, delusional sap.
I fill my cup and grab my laptop off the table, then take them both out onto the front porch.
“Morning, you little underwear thief,” I say to Mr. Tubbs, who’s sitting on the bottom step basking in the sunlight. He gives one lazy thump of his tail without looking at me and I sit down on the top step, careful not to disturb him. Even if he is a dirty thief, he still deserves basic respect.
I take a sip of my coffee and take in the parts of the yard I can see from the porch—a couple of neglected flower boxes and some tilled spots that might have been gardens at one point but are overrun by weeds now.
I can’t see the greenhouse from here, but I know it’s just around the back of the house.
I wonder how big it is and whether Cooper uses all the space inside.
A whole other list of thoughts and ideas starts forming in my mind.
I flip open my laptop and open up a document to start writing it all down.
By the time I’m done, I have several different lists that are organized by category: cleaning, shopping, gardening, and ideas.
The last one was almost too broad of a topic, but I couldn’t think of a better way to categorize some of the random musings and thoughts I wanted to write down, so I’m going to have to live with it for now.
Maybe it will turn into several more specific lists later.
Once I’ve exhausted my lists, I reluctantly log onto my email to clear out all the junk. There are a couple of emails from former colleagues at the lab asking if I’m coming back, and another couple from different labs trying to tempt me to come do my research there.
If I’m being completely honest with myself, when I quit and took the job at The Sand Bar, part of me always assumed that eventually I would get past this burnout or mental breakdown or whatever it was and go back to my old job and my old life. I can’t picture that anymore though.
The sound of familiar footsteps draws my attention away from my email, and I look up to see Cooper coming up the walk with a paper bag in his hand.
“Cherry Danishes,” he says, holding it up.
My stomach growls immediately and we both laugh. I close my laptop and set it aside, then scoot over a few inches to make space for him on the step. Mr. Tubbs doesn’t make any attempt to move so Cooper clumsily steps over him, plopping down next to me.
“There’s coffee inside, you want me to grab you a cup?” I offer.
“I’m good.” He picks up my mug and takes a sip.
“Hey.” I snatch the whole bag of Danishes from him in retaliation.
“Hey,” he says right back. We glare at each other for a few seconds, then I reach into the bag and pull out one of the pastries, holding it out slowly towards him, eyeing my coffee at the same time. It’s a tense exchange, but in the end, we both get our hostages back safely.
We laugh and trade a quick kiss, then I set my coffee out of his reach and pull my own Danish out of the bag.
“What were you working on?” He nods at my laptop.
“Lists,” I say with a smirk.
“I probably should have guessed that.”
“Probably.” I chuckle. “I got some emails too,” I say carefully. “I was just trying to decide how to respond to them.”
His expression stays open and curious. He bites into his pastry and nods for me to go on.
“Basically, my old job wants me back and a few other labs are offering me the moon to come work for them instead.”
He nods again. “Makes sense. You’re fucking brilliant and you have won a Nobel Prize, so I can see why they’d all want you working for them, solving the mysteries of the universe and shit. What do you want to do?”
I eye him for a second, trying to hear any hidden meaning or possible resentment in his words. He still seems completely genuine and unbothered though.
“What if I said I wanted to go back to Geneva?” I don’t want to, not really, but I guess part of me needs to know.
Cooper licks a glob of cherry filling off of his thumb, then looks me dead in the eye.
“Honestly? I’d be bummed to leave Palm Island and kind of hope that one day you might want to find a job with more beach access since skiing isn’t really my jam. But if you need to be in Geneva, then I’m coming with you.”
LYRIC
I’m not even totally sure where Geneva is, but I’m pretty sure it’s cold and snowy.
Sweden maybe? It doesn’t matter because I’m not making the same mistake again.
I wasn’t wrong that Yuri was meant to do big things with that genius brain of his, but I should have gone with him instead of letting him go.
A smile stretches across his lips, and he lunges forward to kiss me.
It’s not a quick peck this time, it’s tongues and happy sighs and smiles that make it hard to get the rhythm just right.
When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine, his fingers wrapped around the front of my shirt.
“I don’t want to go back to Geneva,” he says. “I don’t really want to go back to working in a lab at all.”
“I thought you loved that stuff?”
“I loved the idea of it. I loved learning about it and trying to make sense of it all, and I loved the challenge of it, but ninety-nine percent of the job was sitting in front of a computer running models to test calculations and compiling data. I think I did all I had to do there. I moved the field forward, I made an impact on this world, and now I just want to be happy. Is that selfish?”
“I don’t think it’s selfish. But even if it is, who gives a fuck? You only have one life, sweetness, you don’t need to live it for anyone else.”
He smiles again and nods, bumping his nose against mine.
“I think I just want to stay here on Palm Island with you. I want to grumble about being too sweaty and covered in sand, I want to make pointless spreadsheets about the flora and fauna just because I can, and I want to plant flowers all over the front yard.”
“Okay,” I agree easily. “Hey, you want to see the greenhouse?”
He laughs. “Sure, show me the greenhouse. It was on my list, actually.”
He leans back and we both stand up.
“Oh, thank god, I wouldn’t want to do anything that wasn’t on a list,” I tease.
He pinches me playfully, and I grab his hand to drag him down the steps. I trip over Mr. Tubbs, who hisses and darts off, and Yuri calls “sorry!” after the cat.
“He’ll be fine.” I tug him along towards the back of the house. “Devil and I built the greenhouse together a handful of years ago,” I tell him, opening the door and waving him inside.
“You built it? Like, you had a riveting gun or whatever and you actually put the frame together and installed all the glass panels?”
“Well, mostly Devil, but I helped.” Sure, most of my help was holding shit when it required two hands and playing music to keep him entertained while he worked, but everyone has their role to play.
The smell of weed is heavy in the humid air of the greenhouse. I breathe in deeply and grin. Is there a better smell in the whole damn world? Yuri is immediately in genius mode, feeling the leaves of the plants and digging his fingers into the dirt of several pots.
“They look really healthy, but I’d love to order a soil analyzer so I can get some data. And I want to make notes on a few full growth cycles before I can really make some suggestions for improvements to the process.”
“Sure, whatever you want to do.” I love the idea of Yuri spending time in my greenhouse, making all kinds of charts and testing out different types of soil.
Once his fingernails are dark with dirt and he seems satisfied with my plants, he pivots to the space I haven’t filled. It’s mostly stacked with broken pots and bags of dirt, plus other random storage stuff.
“How would you feel if I planted some of my own stuff in here?”
“What, like different strains of weed?”
He snorts a laugh. “I was thinking tomatoes and peppers to start, maybe. It kind of sucks that all the produce we get on the island gets shipped from the mainland and is pretty trash by the time we get it.”
“Oh, yeah, it totally sucks.”
“So, maybe I can fill a need, grow stuff, and sell it to the locals. That’s a long-term plan, obviously.
I need to start with a few plants, perfect the soil and my growing process, make sure the produce is quality, then I can think about selling it.
And if that all goes well, maybe we can build a second greenhouse or expand this one.
But that’s probably, like, a five-year plan. ”
Even though he just said he wants to stay, hearing him rambling about a long-term plan to set up a local produce farm makes it feel more real.
I know nothing is set in stone, and life could take us all kinds of places, but for now we can be happy on Palm Island together, and if the wind blows us somewhere else eventually, we’ll be happy there too. Together.
“Sounds good to me,” I say, then I pull him in for another slow, lingering kiss.