5. Goodbye
five
On Saturday morning, I woke up on the couch alone. Everything hurt from the position in which I’d slept in, so I stretched my arms and cracked my neck, my eyes searching for Nathan. Feeling slightly warmer, I pushed aside the coats and got up. The faint light from outside flooded the space, revealing the empty wrappers on the floor next to my feet.
Bending over, I grabbed them one by one. “Nathan?” I called out. He didn’t respond, so I got up, tossing them into the nearest trash can underneath a colleague’s desk. “Nathan! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I walked toward the meeting room, which was empty. I then turned and went over to Alex’s office. The door was closed, so I knocked and opened it.
My laughter preceded anything else as I saw him planking on the floor, sans tie. “Now that’s what I call dedication.”
Without breaking his pose, he looked up at me. His reddened face glowed with beads of sweat all over it, matting the hairs on his forehead and the sides of his neck. “And… sixty.” He pushed himself up to his feet and I saw his shirt sticking to his body, revealing a ripped chest.
“Uh—” I shook my head. “How long have you been doing this?”
“There aren’t any clocks around here.”
“And still no power.”
“I’d say a half hour?”
I dipped my head. “Of planking?”
“Are you kidding?” He started doing jumping jacks in place. “There’s also cardio.”
Raising my eyebrows, I nodded before spinning on my heel. “Well, we only have cold water, then. Iced coffee?”
“Sure!” I heard him say.
In the kitchenette, I wondered what his sweat smelled like. We didn’t have any other clothes, and the shower upstairs didn’t sound like an option. With no power, the water heater was useless.
How could he do this to me?
I rinsed the mugs and started stirring the instant coffee, grateful that it dissolved in cold water. Hoping that the fridge still held some coldness, I opened the carton of milk and smelled it. Hallelujah, it was still drinkable.
Walking out with two cups, I hollered, “Your coffee, master!”
He emerged from the room, wiping his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “I am forever grateful.”
I handed it to him and quickly stepped away, examining him from a distance as I took a sip. Gesturing in his general direction, I curved my lips upside down. “How are you gonna handle… all this?”
He casually shrugged. “I saw a shower in the bathroom upstairs.”
“You’d be lucky if water came outta there instead of ice.”
“I’ve taken ice baths before.”
I snorted. “Why?”
“They help when you work out too hard. Muscle recovery,” he explained.
Nodding, I forged a comical face of exaggerated knowledge. “Sure, sure. If you weren’t coming down with a cold last night, you most definitely will tonight.”
“Or they may come for us before you have to deal with my corpse.”
“Ah. Aren’t you the yang to my yin?” I took another sip. “You could’ve just skipped the workout, y’ know.”
“Then what?” He sat down in one of the desk chairs with wheels, spinning. “How am I gonna live with all the junk we’re consuming?”
“Gee, you sure have a way to make a gal feel fat.”
He chuckled. “Quit fishing for compliments, Sophie,” he said it in French again, “I already called you skinny.”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and turned away, pretending to check an item on a colleague’s desk. “And what are you gonna do about your shirt? It’s soaking.”
“Why don’t you see if you can call your friend Marcus, huh? Don’t worry about me, I’m a pretty resourceful guy.”
“I’ll bet.” I picked up my phone and checked for a signal. It was back. Trouble was? My battery was at ten percent. “Here goes nothing.” I swiped and called Marcus’ number.
“The number you have called is unavailable right now.”
“Well.” I put the device back down and took a sip. “Marcus is off the grid.”
“Fantastic.” He leaned forward and looked at the landline device on my colleague’s desk. “And these use power to work, so…”
“So, you’d better figure out a way to handle your shirt, mister… or I’ll be sleeping in Alex’s office tonight.”
Much to my surprise, the man did take a cold shower and managed to deodorize his shirt enough not to smell.
We spent the rest of the day talking about music and film, and he even gave me a few ideas for my novel.
In the evening, we shared another joint, and he loosened up, singing along with me to an old Johnny Cash tune as we pretended to take the stage.
And at night, instead of sleeping upright, I agreed to lie down with him, squeezed side by side on the couch with my head on his chest. It was the first time for me to sleep next to a man who wasn’t a lover of some sort. The smell of his shirt, mixed with Alex’s cheap soap, was strangely comforting.
Sunday passed in the same way, with me getting comfortable enough around the handsome stranger to admit that I wished my novel was picked up by a big publishing house. From there, many declarations followed.
“I wanted to be an athlete when I was little,” he confessed on Sunday night. “But then in grade school, I realized that girls thought I was cute… then I wanted to be an actor.”
“Why didn’t you pursue it?”
“Giving my mother a stroke wasn’t on my bucket list.”
I laughed.
“In another life, my novel would be adapted into a film, and you’d play the main character,” I mused in a haze of herb smoke.
“Not if you wanted to enter some festivals.”
“Who’s the pessimist now?”
“I can’t act to save my life.”
“Well, if you’re gonna dream… dream big.”
On Monday morning, I woke up with a start as the noise of the snowplow startled me.
“Nathan.” I tapped on his chest and remembered how hard it was, so I quickly pulled away my hand. “Dude, wake up! I think that’s Marcus.”
He opened his eyes. “Oh, finally.”
I drew a breath, rolling off of him and leapt to my feet. “Yes, we’re about to be liberated.” The realization hit me; that was it for us. It was time for my storm partner and I to bid each other farewell and go our separate ways.
“Uh—” He moaned, stretching his arms. “The only person who’s gonna benefit from this is my masseuse.”
And there it was—a reminder of why we were worlds apart. He was going to get a three-hundred-dollar massage, while my battle with the airline was about to begin for a single ticket that I’d gotten for free.
A knock on the door prompted me to quickly grab my coat and run over there, opening it. “Marcus!” I exhaled his name in relief. “Thank God.”
“I’m so sorry. Mom was in the hospital. Pete’s sitter bailed. Lucy had the flu…”
“It’s okay.” I held up both hands. “How’s everyone now?”
“Out of the woods, thank God.” He looked over my shoulder, and I glanced back, seeing Nathan button his coat. “How did you guys manage?”
“I’ll have to reimburse the entire office for all their snacks, beverages, and towels.”
He chuckled before leaning closer, lowering his voice. “Who’s that?”
“Oh. Alex had a meeting with him on Friday. We got snowed in before he could get on the road back to New York.”
“New York, huh?” I saw his eyes scan Nathan from head to toe. “Anyway, do you need a ride home?”
“I’m sure you have more to do with this. Oak’s Way and Pun Lane must be a dead end now. I’ll manage.”
“I’ll take you home,” Nathan said, and we both looked at him. “Nathan Wright, nice to meet you.” His eyes then moved back to me as he shrugged, wrapping his scarf around his neck. “I’ll drive you. As a thank you?”
Tittering, I turned to Marcus and wrung my hands. “See? Sorted.”
“Alright.” He nodded, tugging on his knitted hat with one hand while waving to Nathan with the other. “Nice to meet you, Nathan.” He then leaned to me. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Deal.” I watched him turn around. “Uh—I’ll probably be at The Brew tonight, if they all wanna hang?”
“I’m down!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blue BMW parked near the driveway and went to examine it. It was covered in melting snow. Turning back inside, I saw Nathan check on the items in his laptop bag.
Wordlessly, I went to my desk and started gathering my belongings, tossing them into my tote bag in no specific order. We were finally free, and I could go home, take a nice hot shower, eat a proper meal and begin my attempts of saving my trip.
Then why was I so… disenchanted?
When I glanced in his direction, I tried to let Nathan’s practical mode inspire me. In just a couple of minutes, he had managed to get everything together and was now standing at the door, waiting for me.
In the passenger’s seat, I watched Nathan’s transformation become complete. He was now back to his original self—Nathan Wright, attorney at law and wealthy socialite. The car suited him, and so did the calls he began receiving as soon as he plugged his phone into the car’s charger.
“Nate, we were legit worried, bro.” His friend’s voice rang through the speakers. “Glad you’re okay.”
“Nathan, darling. You must know, I instructed Keegan to inform me the minute you get home.” That one sounded like his mother.
“Oh, man,” his father’s words dripped from between his hearty chuckles. “That’ll teach you! You don’t go to the client, they come to you.”
I watched his face as he kept it as plain as possible. “Dad, I’m not about to change my ways now.”
“It’s never too late, son.”
“Well, anyway. I gotta run. Talk to you later. Bye.” When the call dropped, he glanced in my direction, and I smiled. “So, tell me. Did we make it?”
I shrugged, looking ahead. “We are alive.”
“I meant the other thing we talked about.” He paused. “Coming out of there as friends?”
“Oh.” I tittered.
“Friends have each other’s numbers.”
I slowly shook my head in fake disapproval. “Stop hitting on me.”
“Was Marcus hitting on you?”
“I’ve known Marcus for years!”
“Well, you have years to get to know me.”
We approached my house, and I pointed. “Stop, this is me right here.”
He slowed down the car and brought it to a halt, shifting to face me as he placed his elbow on the wheel. “You’re really not gonna give me your number.” He paused, staring at me in disbelief. “After all we’ve been through?”
Knowing that I should at least explain, I let my sigh be heard as I slowly blinked. My words came out slowly, unlike my racing thoughts. “Look… Nathan… I might have not shown it? But I had an amazing time. But in my experience, letting it be just that is the only way to keep it sweet… and simple.”
“Simple,” he repeated. His gaze was a million miles away.
“Yes.” Without another word, he unlocked the doors, and I placed my fingers on the one next to me. “Goodbye, Nathan.”
He nodded and said nothing. As soon as I left the car, he drove off. And before I even thought about getting inside the house, I wanted to go to the market and buy replacements for everything he and I used over the past three days.
Perhaps my mother was right about me. My brain did put practicality ahead of feeling, and actions above words. Nathan Wright might have wanted to be my friend, but that would have never worked.