Chapter Sixteen #2
Beneath it, he’s left a note, a list of phone numbers that might come in handy, instructions for using the coffee maker and for lighting a fire in the fireplace, quirks about the old house he thinks I might need to know.
I can’t believe he took the time to do this for me, given how anxious and worried and exhausted he was.
I wander through the rest of the downstairs, which feels even bigger—and so much emptier—without him here. In the foyer, I sink down to the floor and lean against the front door and study the note he wrote, which is still in my hand.
His handwriting is neat, but not perfectly so—the sort of neat that makes me think that in fact it might usually border on sloppy, but this time, he made a special effort.
For me. He mostly prints, like other science-y types I know, and pretty compactly at that, but the letters with tails all have loops.
The overall effect is one of restraint, with occasional surges of passionate energy, not unlike the man himself.
It reminds me of the way his serious expression pairs with those goofy t-shirts and the heavy metal music and the cooking.
It makes me think of the night I spent in his bed.
The icy fingers of a cold draft slip beneath the door and tickle my lower back, making me shiver. What was I thinking, agreeing to stay here?
Despite the chilly air, I’m still sitting there contemplating that question when, some undetermined time later, I hear steps on the porch.
The knocker falls, and I absorb the reverberation with my spine.
Scrambling to my feet, I peer through the decorative pane of stained glass along one side of the door and spy the distorted figure of a pizza delivery person standing there.
I open the door just a crack. “I didn’t order anything,” I start to say, but as she slides a box from the insulated sleeve she’s carrying, I can see Fisher’s name and address on the tag.
“Mr. Davis ordered online, about an hour ago,” she explains as she holds the pizza out to me.
I start to take the box from her. “Oh, sorry. Just a second. My purse is in the other room.”
“He already paid,” she says, sounding impatient. “Including the tip.”
After she’s gone, I place the box on the table in the foyer and just stare at it.
On the way to the hospital to see his critically ill father, Fisher thought to order me a pepperoni and banana pepper pizza—my favorite—from Stan’s, universally derided as the worst pizza place in town and the one I once told him I unapologetically love the most.
Now, a cheap pizza is not, in romance-novel speak, a grand gesture …
yet right in this moment, it feels like one.
Especially in combination with the note and, well, the whole house, really.
Coming to my rescue when he had no obligation to do any such thing.
When he was the one who really needed rescuing.
For the first few hours after Geoff’s texts, I was fueled mostly by fury at the idea Fisher lied to me by not telling me who he really was.
But all of that began to ebb sometime yesterday evening as we talked.
And now, as I’m standing here looking at this greasy pizza box, my anger is at low tide, and other feelings start to edge their way back in.
At the smell of food, Bing Bong appears as if from nowhere. “Come on,” I tell him as I pick up the pizza and carry it into the kitchen. When he hops onto one of the barstools to watch me, it sets up the perfect shot. I snap a pic of him eyeing the box and send it to Fisher.
You didn’t need to do this—but thank you
I don’t expect to get a reply since he’s presumably in the air by now. But I guess when you’re Fisher Davis III, the upcharge for in-flight wi-fi isn’t prohibitive, because a second later he texts back.
Glad to see you two are settling in. Enjoy!
My thumbs hesitate over the keyboard. There’s a lot I could say, and a lot more I probably shouldn’t. Finally, I settle on:
Let me know when you land
Behind that simple request stand generations of taciturn Midwesterners expressing concern and affection in the best way they know how: lingering in the driveway, waving goodbye after half an hour of leave-taking, calling out to their friends with an unnecessary reminder to watch for deer!
I doubt he understands the subtext, of course, being from Connecticut and all. And also a literal-minded STEM kind of guy. Nonetheless, I’m relieved when he texts back.
I will
Several hours later, when the pizza is gone, along with more of a bottle of Gaby’s wine than was probably wise, and I’m curled on the sofa with Bing Bong and that fluffy blanket, wondering whether it’s hypocritical of me to enjoy all this and still be a little mad at Fisher, he doesn’t text. He calls.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” He sounds every bit as weary as he did before he left, so I’m guessing he didn’t sleep on the plane.
“Not at all,” I say as I push myself more upright against the arm of the sofa, which seriously disgruntles the cat. “So you’re at the hospital?”
“On the way. Landed about twenty minutes ago at LaGuardia.”
“Well,” I say after a beat of silence, “I appreciate you letting me know you made it safely. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate …”
He doesn’t immediately latch on to that opportunity to extract himself from the conversation. “Is Pizza Stan’s as awful as ever?”