GRATEFUL
45
Nuri : A little bird told me you and dear old Nate went on a little romantic getaway?
Prudence : I can’t believe Evie and you are texting daily.
Prudence : You two are just huge gossips.
Nuri : Hey, I’m texting you daily too!
Nuri : Which is why I’m a little hurt that I didn’t know about the getaway!
Prudence : I didn’t even know about it until we drove to the ferry boat.
Nuri : How was it?
Nuri : Did you have fun or did you spend the whole weekend freaking out about Jack?
Prudence : I actually had an amazing time.
Nuri : Next step is you flying to San Francisco.
Nuri : I’m proud of you.
Prudence : Baby steps…
PRUDENCE
“Stop fidgeting, sweetness.”
I can’t. Jack hasn’t answered my messages since we boarded the ferry, and we got stuck in traffic. Stupid L.A traffic…
“What if—”
“Nothing happened,” he reassures me as we park in front of his house. I force myself not to jump out to run to the damned glass door and peer inside. “The last text said they were cooking the meal for tonight. It was literally two minutes before we left Avalon. They’re probably just focused on the task and left their phones aside. I mean, you know cooking is not Jack’s forte…”
To put it lightly…
He’s been learning for the last few weeks, cooking with Evie when she prepared the meals, and with Ikram in the morning.
His pancakes are pretty good now, but the last time I tried his scrambled eggs, I did not manage to keep it in my mouth, no matter how hard I tried to. That forced smile did not help.
Nate stops the car, and leans forward to give me a quick kiss.
“It’ll be fine, sweetness. I’m sure Evie’s already here, pulling at her own hair in frustration because of their lack of skill.”
I snort. “ Jack’s lack of skill. Ikram’s cooking is damn good.”
“It is,” he chuckles. “As a matter of fact, he promised he’ll make his Lemon Semolina cakes for dessert.”
I manage to give him a small smile.
“Alright, let’s go so you can see everything is fine.”
Before I can open my door, he’s already out and doing it for me, giving me his hand. Which I gladly take as my whole body is really sore from our weekend.
We walked a lot. There are no cars on the Island, and we had to visit the whole place by foot. And sure, yes, sex. Lots of sex, interrupted only during the night by him forcing me to pee after each time and the occasional nightly snack.
So yes. Really sore from our weekend.
I freeze in front of the door.
Should we just walk in, as I have a key and it’s technically my house too? Then why do I feel like we should ring the bell as it doesn’t feel like my home? Why does it feel like it’s Jack’s and Ikram’s, and my home is the house next door?
“Everything alright?” Nate asks, dropping a kiss on my temple.
Is it? I should feel confused, but I don’t. It feels… Right.
I look at his confused face and nod with a smile.
“Yeah,” I say before I press on the door ring.
The kitchen is a chaotic mess. Jack is sitting on a stool with a pout as Evie is working behind the stove.
“As I said, we’re not exactly ready,” Ikram says, scratching his forehead.
“It’ll be fixed in no time,” Evie sings, adjusting the heat under the pan.
It was not.
Turns out, Jack tried to go for a casserole and did something wrong. What did he do wrong? I have no idea, but it turned into a kind of mushy mixture that could only be saved by Evie and her clever ideas and skill.
Now we have a chicken, mushroom, and leek pie with some mashed potatoes.
At least it tastes really good.
“Thursday,” Evie says. “We’ll do a cooking day. We’ll go over the basics again.”
Jack grunts but nods anyway as he takes another bite of his pie. When we moved in, the large round table confused me because there were only the two of us. My heart feels warm looking at all of us, seated together at the table, with room for one more person. Maybe Evie’s next date, or Nuri when she’ll come back.
I can’t wait to do this again.
“You didn’t tell me about your book signing event last week,” I say to Jack, pouring everyone another round of wine.
“I missed doing those,” he says with a sad gleam in his eyes. “I hope I can do more. Maybe with you, once the storytelling book has been published.”
“Did you send it?”
“Saturday morning,” he grins. “And since my agent can’t spend a day without checking her emails, she read it all in one go and answered this morning.”
“You didn’t tell me!” Ikram whines. “So that’s what you were doing in your office for so long.”
Jack nods with a small smile. “I didn’t want to mention it in case she thought it was a dead end.”
No matter how many best sellers he has written, Jack always doubts his finished manuscripts. I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re an accomplished writer or not, the imposter’s syndrome is hitting everyone hard.
“And how was the meeting with the family?” Nate asks, serving me and himself another spoon of the mashed potatoes I’ve been eyeing in silence.
Ikram and Jack look at each other with tenderness, holding their hands over the table.
“I had an amazing time,” my brother says with a soft smile. “He has like the loudest but kindest family I’ve ever seen.”
My heart constricts. Jack deserves to have a family like this. If he gets it through Ikram, it’s good enough for me.
“I think my mother loves you more than she loves me,” Ikram chuckles. “She never gave me her secret Samsa recipe.”
Jack rolls his eyes but they still shine with adoration. “She knows I’m too bad a cook to ever shadow her. And you couldn’t be more wrong. She said as her ‘Ibn’ , whatever that means, I had to know what your favorite dessert was so I could cook it for you.”
“ Ibn ?” I frown.
Ikram looks at Jack with wide eyes. “She called you that?” He asks, and Jack nods, arching a brow. “My mom can be a little over the top. By calling you stuff like that, she only means that she approves of our relationship.”
“But what does it mean?” Evie asks.
“It means son. It means she sees him as part of her family.”
I focus on my glass of wine. How fucked up our life was for such a simple thing to make me want to cry. She approves of their relationship. And because of this, Jack has a family that loves him like a son. Like he should have been loved by his own family.
“And what about your weekend?” Evie asks me, wiggling her eyebrows.
I swallow my sip of wine and clear my throat. I bet she knows exactly what we did.
“We spent Saturday morning hiking,” Nate answers. “We had lunch in a beachfront restaurant, then we did some shopping before we went to the hotel spa. And this morning, we slept in late so we only had the time to visit the museum after lunch before we came back here.”
“Did you bring us presents?” Jack asks, lifting a brow.
“They’re still in the car,” he says, tilting his head towards the front door. “I can get them before we head back.”
Before we head back… Am I upset that he included me in this sentence? Like it’s obvious that I’m spending the night at our— his —house? I mean, I do have a lot of stuff over there. Most of my work clothes, my tablet, my sketchbook. He bought my favorite coffee, has a stock of my trusted shampoo and conditioner in our—damn , his —bathroom. He switched from orange juice to grape juice because I prefer it… We have a favorite show that we watch together.
Oh my god, am I living with him? Without even noticing? Why is my heart doing weird loops and why do I have excited flutters in my belly?
“You guys could stay here for the night, I don’t mind,” Jack says with a smile. “And we can all grab breakfast together before Prue heads to work in the morning?”
Nate turns his face to look at me, waiting for me to answer. And it hits me. I would prefer to head back home . To our home. This house is Jack’s and Ikram’s, and I’m just a guest here. Jack will always be my first home, my safe place. But I’m building something with Nate. Something strong, something that will last. And because I love that man more than I don’t think I’ve ever loved before, I’m not relying on my safety net as much as I used to. On Jack. Because I don’t need to anymore. I trust— I know —that Nate won’t drop me.
I smile at him. The man who loved me and lost his best friend for it. The man who, piece by piece, managed to tear my walls down. The man who gave Jack his legs and hope back.
“Sure, we can stay for the night,” I say. Because no matter if I feel more comfortable next door, having Nate with me makes any place feel like home.
“I’m supposed to have a call with Naveen and Tham tomorrow morning, you could join,” Jack adds innocently as Ikram starts to take away the plates to serve his dessert.
My smile falters slightly.
“Maybe.”
We haven’t talked about what we’ve learned in Aspen. I put all my energy into keeping all of it tight in the small box at the back of my mind. And, as Jack talks with our siblings on a regular basis, I’m doing my best to avoid them, focusing instead on developing my life here. Maybe in a few weeks, or months.
For now, I’m learning about myself and how to be happy. How to be my own person. How to follow my needs, desires, and own path, and embracing the choices Jack made to lead us here.
And one day, I’ll talk to our siblings. Maybe give them a chance. I’ll even tell Jack about the history he refused to hear about but that I asked for anyway.
We’re both healing, and Jack is doing a better job than I am.
But I’ll get there, eventually. I know I will.
“Can you get one of your shirts?” I ask, looking around my room awkwardly.
“You don’t have any of your outrageous sleeping clothes here?”
His arms circle my waist tenderly as his soft chuckle warms my temple. I relax in his arms, feeling his soft lips dropping a few kisses along my hairline.
“I barely have any clothes left here, to be honest. I think the few I had were the ones you packed for our weekend. Along with the outrageous —”
“God, those little things…” He bites at his lower lip with a dreamy look on his face. “I’ll have to buy more of them.”
“Obviously, since you absolutely destroyed the ones—”
“Let’s not put blame on each other, okay?” He interrupts me, tickling my sides. “What was I supposed to do? You were stuck in that lacy piece of heaven.”
I scoff. “I was not stuck . You just couldn’t unclasp it.”
“Same thing. That delicious nakedness of yours was hidden and all the things I wanted to taste and touch were inaccessible. We need to get more of those, but with an—easier access.”
He nibbles at the sensitive skin in my neck and I giggle, trying to escape his hold. He lets me without putting up too much of a fight, and kisses the top of my hand softly.
“I’ll get a shirt for you in my car.”
“Thank you.”
He leaves and I head to the bathroom only to realize that my brush is not here anymore and that the only thing left is my toothbrush and an almost empty tube of toothpaste.
The toothpaste Nate let me choose when I came shopping with him and he got me a toothbrush. The one he’s been using ever since. It seems like meaningless details, but it’s a big deal. Overnight, he changed a lot of things and habits to incorporate me. And I only notice now.
He joins me not 2 minutes later and I catch my pensive frown in the mirror as I lean to spit in the bowl.
“I’ve put the shirt on the bed,” he says as he takes his toothbrush out of his little travel bag. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
He kisses my forehead and I slip out to change.
When he leaves the bathroom shortly after me, I’m already under the cover, staring at the ceiling.
He slides next to me—on the spot at my right, like he always does—and pulls me into his arms.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks as I nestle against his chest. “You look a little off.”
“I’m—It feels weird sleeping here.”
“Ah,” he sighs. “You haven’t slept here in a while. I’m sorry, I’ve—”
“No, no. I just—I don’t miss it.”
He stays silent for a while, and I could almost fall asleep with the beating of his heart.
“You don’t?” he finally asks.
“I—Random feeling of the day?” I pause a couple of seconds, searching for my words. “I think I’d like to move the rest of my stuff tomorrow.”
The room, the whole house is quiet, the only sound is our breathing and heartbeat.
“To move in with you,” I add. “Home.”
“Home,” he repeats slowly. “With me.”
I nod against his chest, and his arms tighten around me.
“Home is where you are,” he whispers. “If you wanted me to move here, I would. If you wanted me to sell my house for us to take a crappy apartment in the city, I’d do it gladly. If you wanted us to move across the country, I’d book the tickets myself.”
I take a breath like a weight has been lifted off my lungs and smile against his chest.
“Your house will do. After all, it already has my favorite shampoo and conditioner, my favorite brand of toothpaste, my favorite coffee, most of my stuff, a whole pack of grape juice…”
He pinches my waist playfully and I giggle.
“I’d be lying if I told you that your shampoo is not for my benefit. I sniff at it everyday when you’re at work like a drug addict.”
I laugh in his neck, shaken by the rumbling of his chest.
“Your house feels like you. And you feel like home.”
“I’ll move your stuff first thing in the morning,” he says softly.
I fall asleep the same way I did for the last month. Feeling happy and safe. Feeling like life is finally more than just a struggle to survive.
Feeling grateful.