Chapter 27
NOT WANTING JAMES OR ISA TO HELP whatsoever with cleanup (they’d played our party last minute and pro bono!), I sent them up to Fair Winds II, our accommodations for the night.
“I’ll put on some water for tea!” Isa called down from the balcony, but Henry and I weren’t climbing the carriage house’s steps to join them anytime soon.
We still had business to attend to; specifically, numbers to run and paychecks to organize.
I wanted to cut all ties from this night as soon as possible.
“Well,” Henry said once we were settled at the hot shop’s worktable.
“At least we didn’t have to call the police. ”
I groaned. “Mood.”
All I could do was nod. Ten thousand dollars and change.
Even after deducting everyone’s wages for tonight.
Ten thousand dollars and change! The total was technically pending, but still.
Three thousand from me, a grand from Henry, almost six thousand from five Here-to-Stay check-ins and checkouts (well, as of tomorrow), and prompt compensation for all Joel and Lana’s party needs. It was all there.
And a special shout-out to Venmo’s instant transfer feature! I thought. The fee was worth it, because the Barbour family’s Expect the Unexpected account was once again liquid.
My parents were not going to sink their teeth into me.
Not for this, anyway.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Henry asked. “Why aren’t you dancing on top of the table right now? You recovered ten grand in less than a month!”
“I know.” I released a deep breath, then echoed what I’d told him at the party. “Nothing would have been possible without you, Henry.”
With a smirk, he nudged me. “You happy, Hepburn?”
Hepburn, a hit to the heart.
The corners of my eyes started to sting. “Can we talk?” I asked Henry, at the same time he sighed and said, “We should talk.”
I gave him a look. “About what? We’ve compiled quite the list of viable topics.”
“I know.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s start with Golightly Glass.”
Golightly Glass? I thought. Really? Business?
Although maybe it was the easiest starting point.
“Okay…” I shifted in my seat. Henry’s s brown eyes looked hesitant, but warm. My pulse picked up. “What about it?”
Henry cleared his throat. “I feel like I’ve been giving you the impression that I want to quit soon,” he said. “That I plan to leave it behind when I go to NYU.”
“I mean, I understand if you do,” I told him, thinking of our uncertain plan for Golightly Glass after graduation. I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. It was going to be harder to say goodbye to high school than I thought. “It might be tough to find time, with your classes and stuff.”
“Maybe,” Henry allowed, “but I want to find the time. Maybe I won’t be able to pack and ship out inventory, but I’ll be all over our Instagram and I have an idea for a T-shirt design.
” He paused. “I love Golightly Glass, and even if we aren’t side by side anymore, we’ll figure out how to stay in sync… ”
A sharp pang struck me in the chest. If Henry was so dedicated to our Etsy shop, why couldn’t he show the same dedication to our relationship?
“Audrey,” he whispered when I didn’t say anything.
“Why are you so against long-distance relationships?” I blurted. “Why are you so determined to call them doomed?”
Next to me, Henry froze like I’d hit his most serious nerve. “Because…” he slowly said. “I have yet to see one with a happy ending.”
“Henry, come on,” I said. “You can’t give up hope just because Griff and Libby fell apart!” I laughed a little. “Don’t tell me you thought they were going to be the paragon of a long-distance couple…”
“No,” Henry said tightly. “But I hoped my parents might be.”
My heart slipped into my stomach. Oh.
It was a sudden and swift reminder that Henry and I’d known each other less than two years. I didn’t know much about his parents’ divorce beyond it happening when he was nine and the whole thing being relatively drama-free. His mom and dad were pretty good friends now.
Henry slipped off his stool and paced the shop.
“They were never in the same place at the same time,” he explained.
“My dad was working all the time. He was writing for SNL, doing comedy festivals, writing for awards shows, traveling for his tour, and then he started booking sets on the late-show circuit, and just like that, he had to be everywhere… while Mom was home with me.” He paused.
“No one supported him more than her—I remember her shrieking when he got his first Netflix special—but they never saw each other, Audrey. At some point, I think my dad’s longest stretch home was a week.
” He rubbed his eyes. “And as easy as it is to say that sitting on the couch together isn’t the height of luxury, it does matter. It matters so much.”
The lump lodged in my throat was too large for me to speak, so I quickly nodded in understanding as I rose from my stool. I knew my parents missed drinking wine while playing Scrabble together.
Henry and his plight against long distance…
It made sense.
“I’m scared,” he admitted once I joined him where he stood near the furnace.
I took his hand and squeezed it. “I was confident in what Ellie and I had—Barnard and NYU are in the same city, how hard would that be?—but then she broke up with me so suddenly. No one in this town saw it coming, let alone me. And it really hurt, even though she was only one part of my life. A big part, but not the only part. While you…” His throat bobbed.
“I’ve learned these past couple of months that if Ellie was a quarter of my heart, you are my entire heart.
You’re the fourth person at my family’s dinner table even when you aren’t actually there.
It’s been that way for a long time.” He inhaled.
“Yes, my mom and Tess thought we were idiots for fake dating, but they also thought we were smart—we unknowingly figured out the way to fall for each other.” He threaded his fingers through mine.
“You’re the most important person in my life, Audrey. ”
“And you’re the most important person in mine,” I whispered, my pulse racing. “You know that.”
“You’ve alluded to it once or twice,” he quipped, then rocked back on his heels. “I want to make sure it stays that way. We need to stay best friends. I worry that if we tried and failed as something more, we’ll lose that.”
“You don’t think we could go back to being friends?” I asked softly. “If we dated and it didn’t work out… friendship wouldn’t be possible?”
“No.” Henry blushed. “For so many reasons.”
I blushed back, using my imagination.
“I love you, Audrey,” Henry whispered. “More than I can express.”
My heart swelled, then exploded.
“I love you, too,” I told him. “I love you so much, Henry.”
He smiled and wriggled out of my grip so he could take my face in his hands and kiss me. I tasted the faintest but sweetest hint of rainbow sherbet.
“You helped yourself to the trash can punch,” I breathed.
“And you didn’t?” he breathed back.
I laughed and looped my arms around his neck to kiss him again, longer this time.
What does this mean? a corner of my mind wondered as Henry’s lips on my neck sent zing after zing up my spine. Are we—
We’re together now, I told myself. Right now, in this moment, Henry and I are together.
When we broke apart for air, my eyes darted around the hot shop until they landed on the far corner. Heart hammering, I caught Henry following my gaze before looking at me.
His deep-brown gaze didn’t waver.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I heard myself murmur, “but—”
Henry took my hand and swiftly tugged me across the room, toward the groupie area (as cliché as it was). I laughed and let him lead me to the couch, where he turned and gave me a look, confirming it was okay.
I quickly nodded, and we collapsed onto the couch.
“Are you nervous too?” he asked a while later, when it became clear making out was going to lead to more. I lay on top of him, and I could feel his heart thumping hard in his chest. I’d pulled off his black T-shirt and he’d unbuttoned my jeans. He grabbed a foil square from his wallet.
The question both confused and charmed me. “You’re nervous? What about Ellie?”
“Ellie isn’t you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“Yes, I’m nervous,” I answered, heart rate at full throttle. Tonight would be my first time, but I wasn’t going to overthink it. Henry made me feel confident and unstoppable—when I’d said I loved him, I meant it. “But I want this.”
“Me too.” He grinned, and I giggled when his fingers fumbled on my bra clasp. Soon our clothes had been kicked off the couch. “You’re beautiful, Audrey,” he said, tracing a fingertip along my collarbone. I shivered, but I had never felt so much heat swirling in my body.
I kissed Henry with everything I had once he was on top of me, hip bone to hip bone. Standing side by side or tangled together on an ancient couch, we were always the exact same height. He slowed the kiss down, then pulled away to say something.
I covered his mouth before he could.
“No Oscar-winning lines,” I whispered. “Let’s just be us.”
Henry kissed my palm in agreement before he stretched to turn off the lamp on the side table. Pearlescent moonlight spilled through the hot shop window.
I grimaced when we started to move together, then winced. “Say the word and I’ll stop,” he told me, but I shook my head and focused on his heart beating against mine. Quick, light, loving. Henry-and-Audrey, it whispered. Henry-and-Audrey.