Chapter Eighteen #2
My eyes jump to his. We haven’t used that word yet. Not out loud.
“Sorry,” he says, reading my expression. “Was that okay to say?”
“Yeah,” I say, though it comes out a little breathless. “Of course. I like it. I just... I haven’t had a boyfriend since high school, and the definition was pretty shaky back then.”
“Everything was pretty shaky for me in high school,” Everett jokes as he takes my hand in his, knitting our fingers together while his thumb caresses my knuckles and we both watch the gentle movement. “This doesn’t feel shaky, though. If that’s okay to say, too.”
“It’s more than okay,” I assure him with a squeeze of his hand.
“And I agree. It feels good. Right. Solid. Not boring solid. Great solid. Or sexy solid. Or something like that.” I’m babbling, which appears to amuse Everett but which is making me deeply annoyed with myself, so I stop there and lean in to kiss him, letting our knitted hands fall so they rest on my thigh.
We kiss for a minute, stopping when a zoned-out woman in a caftan and Crocs rolls a squeaky cart past us at a rate so slow, entire empires are raised and toppled by the time she loads her sheets into a dryer at the far end of the aisle.
A long-limbed guy with his black hoodie pulled up is slouched in a chair by the windows, speed-reading what looks like a horror novel while he chews on a black fingernail.
Another guy, who may or may not be doing laundry, is napping on a row of chairs, using his puffy parka as a pillow.
Otherwise, we’re the only ones here, the Friday-night glamour squad, passing time to the steady rhythm of spin cycles and thumping dryers.
Everett picks up his phone and opens the screen to his unsent message.
“We don’t have to pursue sponsorship,” he says.
“Say the word and I’ll delete the message.
But I promise. There’s a huge gap between posting three or four sponsored TikToks and mustache-twirling corporate greed.
We’re talking about a few nice things to make Aggie’s life more comfortable, and a little money to make your life easier.
That seems like a win to me. And you don’t have to do any of it alone. I’ll help with whatever you need.”
He knows me so well, Everett Redmond, my boyfriend .
Despite my anxieties, I agree with what he’s saying, and I know he’s only encouraging sponsorship because of what it could mean for Aggie and for me.
It’s that thought, above all others, that has me nodding and telling him I’m ready.
He finishes the message and hits send , copying and pasting it with the necessary tweaks until all three companies have a reply.
Then he logs out of my account, pockets his phone, and draws me into a side hug, kissing my head when I tip it onto his shoulder.
“One day, you’ll be a successful veterinarian with a long client list of happy dogs, cats, parakeets, and hedgehogs,” he says. “Then you can buy everything for Aggie, yourself, and treat me to pizza, and maybe even live in a place with an on-site washing machine.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Hashtag living the dream.”
“Listen to you, using social media lingo.”
“Yeah, from, like, ten years ago.”
“Still counts.” He tightens his embrace.
I sigh against his shoulder, but I’m smiling while I do it.
I’m also drawing little hearts over his chest, though as soon as I realize I’m doing it, I switch to lazy circles.
I’m ready to call him my boyfriend. I’m even ready to picture myself buying him pizza three or more years from now, but I’m not sure I’m ready to say the word love .
It’ll be a first for me, and after what happened to Hannah, getting ditched the day after she said it, I’m a little gun-shy.
Thankfully, I can still rest my face against Everett’s firm shoulder and soft sweater.
I can spend a Friday evening in his company, even if we’re redefining the notion of a date night.
I can admire how deftly he navigates a space in which I feel completely out of my depth.
I can listen to him imagine a future in which I’m successful, solvent, and no longer drowning in doubts.
“Did you always know you wanted to go into marketing?” I ask him.
“I wouldn’t say always .” He kisses the top of my head again before resting his cheek there. “They don’t sell a lot of associate creative director costumes for the under-ten crowd.”
I try to picture him at eight or nine, with a big notepad draped over an easel, nudging his glasses up his nose as he informs his fellow third graders about search engine optimization.
“I bet you were cute at that age,” I say.
“I was a total dork. Overly studious. Giant glasses. Baby face. Way too much hair.”
“Like I said. Cute.”
His chest shakes with a quiet but resonant laugh. It’s a beautiful sound, heard up close, and when the thought comes— that’s my boyfriend’s laugh —I can’t help but smile.
“Honestly?” he says. “I thought I might be a furniture designer. Or maybe graphics like book and album covers. Then I took a marketing class in my freshman year and I was fascinated with the ways marketing can link people with what they want or need. And sure, numbers matter, but it’s not necessarily about selling more .
It’s about selling better , directing attention, knowing how to match a product to its likeliest users, how to take something people might otherwise pass by and turn it into something they can’t miss.
There’s a magic to that, as long as I’m working for companies I believe in.
At this point in my career, that’s usually the case. ”
I nod against his shoulder, and before we can say more, the first of my dryers dings and I extract myself from the blissful nook of Everett’s warm and cozy side embrace to fold laundry.
He joins me and together we make quick work of all six loads while I ask him a variation on the question I asked Khalil a few weeks ago, the one that continues to haunt me.
“How did you know it would be worth it?”
“Going into marketing?” he asks.
I nod, and fold, and wonder, and worry. My life in a nutshell.
“How did you know it was the right choice?” I clarify. “How did you know that was the dream to put your energy behind? How did you know you wouldn’t end up regretting it?”
“I didn’t know. Not with a hundred percent certainty.
No one does.” Everett’s response comes quickly but his brow furrows as he slows his folding, like he’s giving the matter further consideration.
“Some luck was involved. I got a job at a company I liked right out of school. It was only entry-level, but I worked my way up pretty quickly due to some personnel shuffling. Landed some interesting accounts.” He folds the last vivid dog towel, setting it on the stack before pivoting to face me.
“I think, at some point, I weighed my options and made the choice, and now I do my best to make it the right choice.” He stops there, and I do, too, letting the last of the laundry idle while I slip a hand under his sweater and press my palm to his chest until I feel his heartbeat, its even rhythm a steadying force I’ve made a habit of seeking out in recent days.
He might not have the chiseled jawline and hard, muscular planes of an athlete or an action hero, but here , he’s so solid, and here is where he makes me feel solid.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I say, “I’m somewhat prone to second-guessing.”
He sets his hand over mine so both rest against his chest. I expect him to tease me about my gross understatement but he remains serious. No dimples. No creases beside his eyes.
“Carefully considering your choices isn’t a bad thing,” he says.
“But Cameron? I’ve seen you with Aggie, and with Pilot.
I’ve seen you pore over your textbooks with genuine interest. If this isn’t the right time or place for you to pursue becoming a vet, I’d understand why.
The cost. The workload. The lack of time for Aggie.
But I also think, even while I can’t know , that if you keep going, you’ll be a great vet one day.
And I can’t imagine you regretting a life that’s centered around helping animals in need. ”
My chest swells with a powerful surge of gratitude and affection I suspect I should be calling something else by now.
No one but Hannah has ever had this kind of faith in me, and maybe I should be able to find it in myself, to not need it articulated outside the confines of my circular thoughts, but it feels so good to hear.
And from Everett, whose opinions I value deeply, and who knows me so well already.
“You sure I’m not the one who has to work to deserve you?” I ask him.
He extracts my hand from under his sweater and places a soft kiss on my fingertips.
“How about we head back to your place, put this stuff away, and spend the rest of the night deserving each other.”
I beam at him, this beautiful man with his beautiful heart.
My boyfriend.
“Now, that’s a choice I don’t have to second-guess at all.”