Chapter 55 Sloan
Sloan
“This guy has got to leave the villa,” Tia moans, waving her wineglass around. Through the computer screen, I see some splash over the rim, falling down and seemingly landing on her keyboard. She tips her head back with a tiny shriek of frustration, batting at it.
“I like him.” Talon shrugs, tossing one arm over the back of his couch.
“You would.” Jay rolls his eyes, tugging up the thighs of his compression boots and stretching his legs out across his couch.
“I regret inviting you to join our weekly reality television FaceTimes.” I try to glare at them all, but I think it gets lost because the quality of four-way video calls really declines when the screens are so much smaller than usual.
Talon pulls his head back, affronted. His eyes narrow before they go wide at something on his phone.
I’m not sure what he could possibly be looking at—it’s not a very riveting episode.
I usually turn my phone on do not disturb when we do this. I did today, too, because I’m trying not to check for texts from Bohdan. We talk a bit each day, and it’s an exercise for me not to answer right away.
Talon clears his throat. “Anything interesting happen today, Sloany? Like, anyone come to your door?”
“No?” I frown.
“Like . . . any solicitors? Nothing?” He shrugs again, bottom lip extending.
“The last solicitor I had was you and you wouldn’t leave my house for two months.”
“You get weird when Gavin’s on the tour.” Tia gives her brother an exasperated look before tugging on a loose curl.
Jay exhales, brow pinching together. “Check your texts, Tia.”
She purses her lips and makes a big show of straightening her shoulders, finger poised and ready to flick through her phone. Her eyes go wide. “Oh. Sloan, we have to go.”
They all hang up at the same time, leaving me staring at my own reflection on the screen alone. Bewildered and blinking.
It’s my turn to be affronted when I text our group chat—it has a stupid name that doesn’t even make sense, courtesy of Talon. Reality TV Real Ones.
Sloan: What the hell?
Jay: Sorry. Proud of you, though. Keep up the hard work.
Tia: I love you.
Talon: You’re welcome.
He follows that up with a giant, exaggerated winking emoji.
My brain doesn’t even have time to whir to life to start telling me they all obviously got sick of me—it’s a bit slower with those types of thoughts these days—because there’s a knock on my door.
Slow. Measured. Steadfast.
I know exactly who it belongs to before I even open the door.
Golden-brown hair, a bit darker than usual because the sun’s only just started to shine again, pushed back off his forehead, the faded pink scar snaking across his temple on display for the world to see.
A light dusting of stubble he doesn’t usually have carving across the planes of his face.
Grey eyes like an early-morning sky when the day hasn’t started yet so it can be anything at all.
Navy long-sleeved shirt pushed up his forearms, ropes and cords of muscles traipsing across them, and the S at the precipice of his left elbow, a bit faded from time but still there.
Permanent.
My heart stirs in my chest, very much awake. It sits, beating a bit too fast at the sight of him, protected by ribs and cartilage of my own making and gifts from the people who love me.
“Got your carrier pigeon.” Bohdan cocks his head, tossing his phone in the air once and catching it.
“Oh.” I breathe, running a palm across my chest. “They move a lot faster than they used to, what with modern technology and all.”
“They do.” He nods thoughtfully before tipping his chin over my shoulder to my kitchen, visible just down the hallway. “Fridge is looking pretty plain, Zlatí?ko.”
“I don’t have any art worth hanging up yet.”
His full lips slant into a frown. “Can I interest you in some?”
“Yes, please,” I whisper.
He pulls it from his back pocket—I know what it is by the size and shape of it—but it’s wrapped in something.
Paper that’s been folded time and time again, frayed a bit around the edges just like the Polaroid.
My fingers tremble, and I’m not sure if it’s from his eyes on me after months and months, or if it’s this new, blooming feeling in my chest.
Happiness. Excitement. A bit of trepidation, but there’s really nothing to be afraid of anymore.
The picture of me, smudged and blurred now, almost worn through, sits in the middle of a certificate.
Certificate of Qualification
This is to verify that Bohdan Novotnak has satisfactorily communicated about his thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants in accordance with the Statutes of the Province of Ontario.
“Did you make this?” Laughter bubbles in my throat, I try to angle my shoulder to wipe the tears away. But Bohdan beats me to it, a singular thumb swiping across my cheek.
“No.” He presses his thumb against each of my freckles before he reaches forward, tapping a stamp on the corner of the certificate. “My psychiatrist did. He wasn’t super keen on the idea because he says it’s lifelong work, but I won in the end.”
“You always do,” I murmur fondly, my eyes finding the stamp. It’s from the university hospital. My heart plummets, but not into nothing. Not into this pit of despair that used to live in my stomach. Into every good feeling I think there’s ever been. “This says—”
“I moved here six months ago.” He keeps his eyes on me when he says it.
“You came.”
“I said I would. There are psychiatrists and neurologists all over the world. There’s only one you.
” The left corner of his mouth lifts with his brows.
“Been to your class a few times. No one’s ever looked more beautiful holding up an ugly, misshapen pot that was used for bloodletting back in the day. ”
My chest constricts. “I never noticed you.”
“It’s a big lecture hall,” he says with a hint of pride.
“It is.” I nod softly.
Bohdan takes a measured step forward, across the trench between us we’ve both started to fill, and he lands safely on the other side, here in the doorway of this apartment with me.
His eyes pinch, lines dig in around the corners like the years between us but neither of us fall in, and his voice cracks.
“I’m all healed up now. Can I come home? ”
“I think it’s going to be a lot of work.” I press the certificate and Polaroid right above my heart.
He nods again, thoughtful, but a real grin—corporeal, not a ghost, not a shadow—carves across his face. “Yeah. That’s alright. Looking forward to it, actually.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
And I am. Very much so.
His thumb swipes across my cheek one more time before it travels across my jaw, whispering over my lips, and his fingers tangle in my hair at the nape of my neck.
He doesn’t count my freckles. I don’t need him to, and I don’t want him to.
Bohdan angles his head down, his mouth hovering just over mine. He speaks, words low, vibrating with promise, and they breathe new air into my lungs. “You’d spend the rest of your life working on building a whole new home with some guy?”
My lips meet his and the words might get lost when our mouths slot together, a brand-new piece to a brand-new puzzle, but I think he hears them anyway. “Only ever you.”