Chapter 27
When Natalie had driven a few minutes away from the house, before they reached the highway, Rob sat forward in the passenger seat.
“Can we turn off here for a moment?” he asked, and she followed his directions to a grassy field.
“The Princeton Battlefield,” he explained. “I liked to come here when I was a teenager, when I needed to think. It’s pretty. Peaceful.” He paused, looking out into the inky blackness before them. “The effect is ruined somewhat in the dark.”
“Yeah, it feels more like you’ve brought us here to murder me,” Nat said.
“Sorry,” he said. “We should go back to the party. I’ve already taken you away from it long enough.”
But Natalie didn’t restart the car, and after a moment, Rob folded his arms on the dashboard, then leaned over them. Head down, he took in deep breaths. Natalie couldn’t tell if he was crying or trying hard not to. She put a tentative hand on his back, and at that, the tears did come, fast and quiet, his back hot under her palm even through his shirt.
The car smelled of whiskey and pine. Natalie didn’t say anything as Rob cried, only kept her hand steadily on him, realizing just how much trouble she was in.
After a while, he shuddered and then sat up, wiping his nose on his sleeve, then looking at said sleeve with faint disdain, as if upbraiding himself for not having the foresight to pack a handkerchief. “I feel like an idiot, not knowing,” he said. Outside, the wind blew the clouds across the sky, revealing a moon so bright it filled the car with a faint, ghostly light.
“You’re not an idiot. I think it’s easy to make excuses with something like this.”
“Yeah,” he said wearily. “And my mom didn’t want to admit to herself how bad it was. Plus, she thought, ‘Poor Rob, his life has already imploded, he doesn’t need this on top of everything else.’?” He finally turned in his seat to face Nat. “Gabby told you about the wedding, I assume. Is that why you’re here, being so kind to me?”
“Yes,” she said. “All that’s going on right now is good old-fashioned pity.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You should pity me. Everything has fallen apart. Zuri, of course, but also…” He hesitated, searching her face, then burst out, as if he had to say it quickly or else he’d lose his nerve, “I hate my job. And I think it might not be just the job but academia more broadly.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know, I have nothing else to compare it to. You were right, back when we first met. I came out of the womb, and academia was stamped on me, and I never considered any other options.” A spark of hope, of possibility, kindled in Natalie’s chest, that Rob remembered something she’d said offhand almost seven years ago. Strange, how she remembered too, how all their interactions over the years stood out in Technicolor in her mind, though she couldn’t even recall what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning.
“What do you love about academia?” she asked carefully.
He held his hands in the air. “Every time I’m teaching, I feel like I should be doing research, and every time I do research, I feel like I’m just trying to impress the tenure committee instead of doing something that matters. There are so many practical applications of what I learn in my research, but I’m not using any of them—” He looked at her. “Yes, I realize that you asked me what I loved, and I told you what I hated.”
Natalie waited, and Rob caught himself, shaking his head. “Enough. This is embarrassing. I will get myself under control.”
“Don’t do that for my sake. This is the best I’ve ever liked you.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes! Maybe not the part where you were brawling with a Santa at the party, but the rest of it.”
He gave her a sideways glance, then shook his head. “I don’t understand. I did everything I was supposed to do. I followed all the rules and met the expectations, and I’m so unhappy.” He leaned toward her. “But do I just…give up?”
“Well, it’s not like I have everything figured out,” Nat began.
“You seem like you do,” Rob said.
She looked down at herself, at a body that finally felt rooted. She no longer woke each morning to a ticking clock in her ears. All that time she’d spent in the muck, making lists of her goals and failing to meet them, trying things and falling flat on her face as the years slipped by…How could she have known then that the time she thought she was wasting was actually time she’d spent growing?
“I think some flailing is good for everyone,” she said. “I mean, flailing sucks. But it might be necessary.” He was staring at her, at her mouth, as if she held the key to something. She felt suddenly like the next sentence she said would be more important than any line she’d ever written for TV, any phrase in one of her books. It was difficult to take a full breath as she continued, “Maybe you should try doing some things you’re not supposed to do.”
“You think so?” he asked, his voice ragged. Slowly, he reached out his hand and traced the line of her cheek. Every nerve in her body woke up, alert and tingling.
“I do,” she said.
Rob reached his other hand up, tangling his fingers in her hair. Then he pulled her forward and kissed her.
He tasted faintly of salt. From crying, she knew, but it made her think of an ocean, the overwhelming shock of walking into something so much larger than herself. That awe-inspiring, destabilizing feeling she felt with an ocean swirling around her, that was how she felt now as Rob kissed her.
As his stubble prickled her cheek and he ran his hands through her hair, she pressed herself even deeper into him. This was different from their kiss in the lake all those years ago. Just as full of feeling but gentler too. Well, gentler at first. Then he unbuckled her seat belt and pulled her toward his lap.
She almost got stuck on the gear shift, her limbs an awkward tangle, and she had to stop kissing him for a moment to laugh.
“What?” he asked, out of breath and disheveled.
“She is beauty, she is grace,” she said, indicating herself, and a smile broke over his face as he registered her position.
“I don’t care how graceful you are.” The two of them grinned. No, “grin” was too small a word. They were both beaming. Then his voice turned lower, almost a growl. “Just come here.”
She catapulted herself the rest of the way across the car, straddling him, their mouths meeting again. He ran his hands down her back, gripping her hips, his fingers making indents in the leather of her pants.
She rocked against him. At the feeling of him growing beneath her, a thrill ran up and down her spine. Urgently, he pulled her shirt out from where she’d tucked it, his hands finding her bare skin beneath. She wanted to gasp in wonder. All this time, it had been Rob she wanted. Rob, whom she’d loathed. Rob, whom she could love.
He pulled back to catch his breath, shaking his head in disbelief. He muttered something to himself, so softly that at first Natalie didn’t register what he’d said. But then the words hit her. He’d said, “Dammit, Zuri.”
And that broke the spell.
What was she doing, letting herself fall for a man who was so vulnerable and recently single? Anybody with half a brain knew that you didn’t hook up with someone you genuinely liked two weeks after they’d called off their wedding. For Rob, the major attraction she offered right now was being anyone but the woman whose name he’d just uttered.
He leaned forward again, but she extricated herself, climbing back into the driver’s seat. “No. We should stop.”
“What?” he asked, alarm in his voice. “Are you okay?”
When she was younger, she might have ignored the warning signs in favor of her immediate want, giving in to something that would leave her feeling used and mixed-up in the morning. But now, she’d learned how to be kinder to herself. “I can’t be your rebound hookup. I’m not here to be a distraction or a bad decision. Not with you.”
“You’re not a rebound,” he protested, and it was so tempting to believe it.
“Your fiancée ended things less than a month ago. You literally just detached your lips from mine so you could say her name.”
“I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have said that.” He rubbed his eyes, his words coming out choppy, his voice rough with desire. “It’s just…she’d told me that we could feel more for other people, and, kissing you, I realized she was right. I’ve been so angry at her, but she was right.”
Her heart swelled. She longed to jump right back into his lap. But instead, she reached out and took his hand. “Still, when we do this, I want to be the only person on your mind.”
“Natalie,” he said helplessly. “I like you.”
She tucked her shirt back in, brushing her hair away from her face. “And I like you. Too much for this, I think.” She kept her voice steady, though part of her wanted to cry. “You’re not ready, and I have to protect myself.”
“If that’s what you want.” He sat back in his seat as if realizing that it was useless to fight her on this. Which was probably good, because if he’d said one more beautiful thing to her, she might have immediately taken off all her clothes. Even now, her body was screaming at her mind to stop being so fucking sensible. But this was the right thing to do.
“We should go back to the party.” Dimly, as she put the key in the ignition, she registered that they’d fogged up the windows.