Chapter Twenty-Two
I wake up to the sharp, earthy smell of coffee.
A jolt of confusion goes through me. For a split second, I’m sure this must mean my dad has finally figured out how to make
coffee by himself. And then I blink, and the ceiling comes into focus, and I realize I’m not staring at the ceiling of the
cottage.
I’m in Nathan’s bedroom, completely naked.
I roll over. The other side of the bed is empty, the blankets pushed back. The blinds are pulled over the single window, but
I can make out light streaming between them, glowing in thin bright stripes on the carpet.
I sit up, looking around for my clothes, but I don’t see them. There is, however, a slightly ratty bathrobe laid out on the
end of the bed. I grab it, pulling it around my shoulders, and shuffle down the hall, blinking in the sunlight that floods
into Nathan’s sparse living room.
Nathan himself is in his tiny kitchen, in the middle of plunging a French press. He’s wearing lounge shorts and a loose T-shirt,
his hair sticking up on one side. “Morning,” he says. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I . . . What time is it?”
“A little after eight.” He pulls a mug down from one of the cabinets. “Do you want coffee?”
“Yeah. Sure.” I rub my eyes. I feel like I slept hard; my head is full of cotton.
Silence settles between us while he pours the coffee. I wander over to the living room window and peer out. The rain of last
night has disappeared, the heavy gray clouds rolling away toward the horizon. Nathan has opened the window a crack, and the
air outside smells like damp earth. Puddles lurk in the dips of the driveway.
“Milk?” Nathan asks.
“Sure,” I say again.
He adds milk and hands me one of the mugs, and then we both stand there, holding mugs of coffee, staring at each other.
Finally, he jerks and gestures vaguely toward the hall. “Sorry, I just hung up your clothes in the bathroom. I don’t think
they’re dry yet.”
Right. We definitely forgot about my damp clothes last night. They must have still been in a heap on the floor when he woke
up this morning. “That’s fine,” I say, trying for a smile. “I can wear them home and dry them there. Or something.”
“Oh,” he says. “Do you need to get going? I didn’t realize—”
“No!” I say quickly, and a little too loudly. “I mean . . . yes. Eventually. I have work. I just . . . didn’t want to assume
it was cool for me to hang here in your bathrobe while my clothes dried.”
“It’s cool,” he says. The smile he gives me is a little hesitant, a little shy. “My shift doesn’t start until noon. I was
just going to hang out here and work on the bike.” He tilts his head in the direction of the half-assembled bicycle.
I look at it, taking a slow sip of coffee. It’s better than any coffee I ever remember Jackson making, or any I’ve made for
myself. I suppose maybe that goes with the whole barista occupation. “Yeah, um . . . Why is there half a bike in your living
room?”
He laughs. “It’s not half a bike. It’s a whole bike, it’s just . . . in pieces.”
I glance at the two wheels leaning against Nathan’s tiny table, one of which is missing half its spokes. “Right. Why is there
a bike in pieces in your living room?”
“I’m building Katy a bike,” he says.
I look at him in surprise. “Seriously?”
He nods. “It’s supposed to be a wedding present, for whenever they actually get married. She keeps saying she wants one and
then never buys one for herself. I got this super cheap off Craigslist. It’s actually a nice model, it just needs some work.”
I look at the bike again—at the spots of rust eating through the frame and the flaking blue paint. “Wow. You should clearly
do that whole bike shop thing sometime. You’re obviously qualified, if you can fix that.”
Nathan pauses, mug halfway to his lips. His eyes go to the bike, and for a moment, his expression is very far away. Too far
away for me to read. Then he takes a sip of coffee and turns back to the counter. “Maybe,” he says. “You think you have time
for breakfast before you need to go? I’m generally kind of a shit cook but I make pretty good pancakes.”
I turn away from the bike. “Yeah, I’ve got time. And also . . .” I hesitate, running a finger over the rim of my coffee cup.
“I can be a little late.”
He glances at me, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I set my mug on the counter and lean up to kiss him.
With the rain gone, the days turn slow and warm and muggy. August sits on the Cape like a damp blanket that refuses to move or to dry out. Even the ocean breezes seem subdued, the summer heat lingering later into the evenings.
“Sometimes I think this is the worst season for a birthday,” Katy says, fanning herself with her menu.
The four of us—Marcus and Katy, me and Nathan—are sitting on the patio of a seafood restaurant in Provincetown, staring out
at the beach. The restaurant is a bit pricier than any place I’ve been so far, but it’s Katy’s thirtieth birthday, and Marcus
insisted we needed to splurge.
“That is blatantly untrue,” Marcus says, studying his own menu. He’s been having a crisis trying to decide between oysters
and lobster, and we’ve had to ask the waiter for more time twice. “The bitter cold of January would be worse.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Christmas. My friend Yasmin’s birthday is on Christmas. It’s the worst.”
“But everything is so pretty around Christmas!” Katy says. She’s decked out in a flowery sundress, her strawberry-blond hair
pinned up, a few loose curls sticking damply to her neck. “And you get so many presents!”
“Yeah, all at once. And people constantly try to combine them.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Oh, I see your point.”
“I think October would be the best month for a birthday,” Nathan says. He’s leaning back in his chair, wearing sunglasses,
and under the table, his knee is just barely touching mine. “You get great autumn colors, it’s cooler, and all the tourists
have left.”
I try to hide my smile behind my cocktail glass. “I do usually have good autumn colors on my birthday.”
Nathan blinks at me. “Your birthday is in October?”
“The seventeenth.” I take a sip and set down my glass. “What about you? When’s your birthday?”
His shoulders tense and he shifts in his chair, his knee moving away. “April twelfth.”
Something scratches at the back of my brain. A date that feels important, but halfway through a cocktail, I can’t remember what it is.
“See, October would be nice,” Katy says. “August is just too hot. Especially without AC. Does your cottage have AC, Harlowe?”
I jerk my eyes away from Nathan. “No. I’ve been sleeping in shorts.”
At least, when I’m sleeping in the cottage at all. Which has been happening less and less lately.
Nathan and I haven’t actually told Katy and Marcus about the two of us. About the kiss we shared on the Fourth, or the one
after Jaws, or anything that’s happened more recently. But we haven’t exactly been making an effort to hide it, and I can see by the
sidelong glance Katy shoots Nathan that she knows exactly what’s going on.
“Right,” she says. “Well, we’re still trying to find a place a little closer to Marc’s work, but I’m not moving unless it
has some kind of air-conditioning.”
The waiter returns, and Marcus finally decides on lobster. As soon as the orders are placed and the waiter has disappeared,
Nathan pushes his chair back, pulling off his sunglasses. “I’m just gonna run to the bathroom,” he says.
I watch him disappear into the restaurant, trying to understand the line of tension still sitting in his shoulders.
“Maybe I’ll go too.” Katy pushes her chair back. “If the waiter comes back, will you get me another glass of wine?” she asks
Marcus.
“You got it, babe,” he says.
She plants a kiss on his head and then disappears into the restaurant after Nathan.
I hesitate, turning my cocktail glass slowly in circles, and then I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. “Does Nathan
hate his birthday or something?”
Marcus glances at me. “Ah, you noticed that, did you?” He shakes his head, adjusting his glasses.
“I don’t really know what it’s about, but he’s never been much for celebrating, that’s for sure.
A couple years ago, he broke up with this guy he’d been dating a few weeks before his birthday, so maybe that has something to do with it. ”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.” I look toward the restaurant, an odd feeling in my stomach. It takes me a minute to recognize it—it’s
that feeling of missing the bottom step again. As though the world lurched a little unexpectedly. “Nathan’s never really said
anything about his exes, I guess. Other than that he’s had them.”
“Yeah, he’s definitely had them.” Marcus picks up his own cocktail glass, swirling it slowly so the ice cubes clink, and then
sets it back down again with a sigh. “Nathan falls hard. I think he’s fallen hard every time he’s started dating someone,
to be honest. It just . . . never seems to end up working out, and then Katy’s watching him like a hawk, afraid he’ll ghost
her and emerge three days later smoking like a chimney again, or . . .” Marcus rubs his face. “Sorry. That’s unfair. He hasn’t
had the easiest time, I just . . . I wish he’d make it easier on himself.”
I look back at my cocktail, a knot forming in my stomach.
What are you doing? a little voice says in my head. You’re going to leave too. So what are you doing?
“Hey.” Nathan reappears, wiping his hands off on his jeans, and sits back down in his chair. The tension seems to be gone
from his shoulders. He smiles at me, and I quickly smile back.
The food arrives just as Katy returns from the bathroom, and we dig in, raising our glasses to toast her birthday, talking
about nothing. Whether any of the upcoming movies are worth seeing at the drive-in before it closes for the season. How many
animals peed on Marcus today (three). Which bike path Nathan should have taken me on instead of the Cape Cod Rail Trail.
He reaches over at some point, finding my hand in my lap and squeezing it.
I swallow around the lump forming in my throat.
What am I doing? I think. What are we doing?