Chapter 22 #2
“Because we hadn't decided anything yet. Because I didn't want my private hope turning into a burden you had to carry. And after the loss... I didn't know what to do with them. I just pushed them into the back of the glove box.”
Kate traced the edge of the cardboard with her thumb.
“You bought these before the photo leaked?”
“Yeah. Before the argument with Tessa. Before I tried to make something public that you hadn't chosen.”
“And you never brought it up.”
“No. They were mine. My hope, not proof of yours.”
My throat ached saying the words aloud. Kate stared down at the knit cotton for a long time. A kid zipped by on a scooter, the hard plastic wheels clattering over a crack in the pavement until the sound dissolved in the mist.
“Do you want to hold them?” I asked gently. “You can leave them in the box. I can put them back in my pocket. You get to decide what happens to them now that you’ve seen them.”
Kate slipped an index finger beneath the top sock. She lifted it carefully and rested it across her open palm.
The tiny heel didn't even cover the first joint of her finger.
“They’re exceptionally yellow,” she murmured.
“It was the least intimidating option.”
“What was the aggressive option?”
“A pair stamped with rugby balls and the words Future Captain.”
“I would've taken legal action.”
“Which is why I chose well under pressure.”
A quiet breath escaped her nose. She folded the small sock back over its match and closed her fingers gently around them both.
“Yesterday, I finally understood that I can mourn this pregnancy and still know that it didn't fit into my life back in April,” she said. “Both of those realities existed. I don't need one of them to invalidate the other.”
A dull throb flared through my shoulder beneath the immobilizer. I didn't shift my weight. That pain could wait its turn.
“I wanted that spare bedroom,” I said. “I didn't know if I was ready for everything that came with it, or if I had any clue what I was doing. But I’d already started moving the weight bench out of the corner in my head.”
“And you bought these.”
“And I bought these.”
Kate opened her hand and brushed her thumb over the soft knit. The bright yellow contrast stood stark against her dark burgundy nails.
“I want to keep them with the ultrasound prints,” she said softly. “If that’s okay with you.”
The emotion pressed sharp and hot behind my eyelids.
“Yeah.”
“Not to replace what we lost.”
“No.”
“Just so they aren't sitting alone in a glove compartment.”
I nodded.
Kate tucked the socks back inside the box and held it against her stomach.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” I said.
“Worse than the Future Captain socks?”
“Close.”
Kate waited.
“I don't want to fix this,” I said. “I want to go through it with you.”
Her chin trembled. This time, she didn't wipe the tears away.
“What does that look like while I’m in New York?”
“It looks like you telling me you had a terrible day without me buying a ticket before asking what you need. It looks like me telling you about my shoulder even when there’s no solution.
It means we can spend ten weeks missing each other and argue without treating every argument like an evacuation. ”
“And San Diego?”
“The physical is tomorrow. I’m going.”
Kate nodded once.
“Good.”
“If they keep the offer on the table, I’m going to consider it,” I said. “If I decide to stay in Seattle, it won't be a sacrifice you have to repay. And if I sign in San Diego, I’m not going to pretend a six-hour flight is a minor detail.”
“I don't need you to make that decision today, Cole.”
“I need you to know what I want today.”
She stayed completely still.
“I want you,” I said. “Not as a solution to my contract, and not because you’re the only person who understands the loss. I want you in airports, on boring Wednesday nights, and when your basil plant attempts to die for the fifth time. I want to ask you to stay, even knowing you can say no.”
Kate looked out toward the lake. A tear slipped from her chin and splashed against the white box.
“The basil has eight new shoots,” she whispered.
“I withdraw the accusation against the plant.”
The humor cracked on the last syllable. Kate set the box on the table and wiped her face with her sleeve.
“I want to tell you what I want today, too,” she said. “I want New York. I want a home in Seattle to come back to. And I want a relationship with you that doesn't depend on one of us falling apart for the other to show up.”
My pulse hammered in my neck.
“Okay.”
“I’m not done.”
“Sorry.”
Kate laid her left palm flat on the wooden bench, halfway across the gap between us.
“I want to protect the possibility of being a mother someday,” she said. “Yesterday was the first time I could say that out loud. Not right now. Not as a guarantee that it will happen. And not as a condition for being with you.”
I slid my right hand across the wood until my knuckles were an inch from hers.
“I want to be a father someday,” I said. “Not right now, either. If and when we ever get to that point, we decide it together.”
“Without using a baby to heal this.”
“Without trying to replace the one we lost.”
Kate closed her eyes. Her fingers bridged the remaining distance, sliding over mine.
“I want to try this with you,” she said. “Us. The relationship. Everything else gets its own conversation when the time comes.”
I laced my fingers through hers.
“Me too.”
Kate shifted across the bench until she was sitting beside my right side, mindful of my injured left arm without asking if I was made of glass.
“I brought one more thing,” I said.
“How many sentimental artifacts do you have crammed into those pockets?”
“This is the last one. The immobilizer restricts my carrying capacity.”
I pulled the folded napkin from my inner pocket and handed it across.
Kate recognized the napkin before she even unfolded it.
“You kept this.”
“In the sun visor.”
She looked down at her original instruction. The morning wind caught an edge of the paper, and she trapped it with two fingers.
“You obeyed it,” she said.
“Once. The second time around, I thought respecting your space meant disappearing again.”
“I didn't want you to disappear.”
“I know that now.”
Kate unzipped a small pocket on her bag and pulled out a pen. She laid the napkin flat across the white cardboard lid. The point tore the paper slightly on the first letter; she eased the pressure and finished writing.
When she was done, she turned the napkin over and showed me the back.
Find me anyway. — K
“Does that replace the first instruction?” I asked.
“It corrects it.”
“Noted.”
Kate folded the napkin along a fresh crease and slipped it into the box beside the yellow socks.
“I love you,” I said.
Kate held my gaze without wavering.
“I love you too.”
She reached up and traced the pale scar through my left eyebrow with the pad of her thumb.
“Can I kiss you without aggravating your shoulder?”
“I trust your risk assessment.”
“That shows a worrying lack of judgment.”
She leaned in from my right side. Her lips were cool from the morning air and tasted of coffee. I kissed her slowly, our fingers still linked, my left arm held motionless against my chest. When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against my temple.
The goose waddled past the bench once more, trailed by the exact same small terrier and an owner who looked thoroughly regretting having ever left the house.
Kate picked up both coffee cups. She handed mine over and zipped the box safely into her tote bag.
“Your things are still sitting on the weight bench,” I said.
Kate squeezed my right hand.
“Then we’re heading back to your place afterward.”
“That’s what I want.”
“One lap around the lake first,” she said. “Slowly.”
“I can walk at a normal speed.”
“Sure you are.”
“That sounded remarkably patronizing.”
“I’m diversifying my skill set.”
We stood up. Kate settled at my right shoulder and took my hand again.
We started down the trail before the morning mist had fully lifted off the water.