14. Heather
— ? —
Heather
I’m nervous.
I’ve been married to this man for five years, and I’m nervous about our first date like I’m twenty-three again and wondering if he’s going to call.
The rooftop bar is exactly as I remember it - city lights sprawling below, string lights overhead, the same corner table where he first told me I had the most expressive face he’d ever seen. Seven years ago, before marriage, before loss, before everything that almost destroyed us.
But tonight, the whole place is empty except for us.
“Did you-” I stop in the doorway, taking in the transformed space.
The tables have been cleared except for one, set with candles and flowers.
The string lights are dimmed to a warm glow.
Music plays softly from somewhere I can’t see, a song I recognize from our first date. “Did you rent out the entire rooftop?”
Grayson is standing by our table, wearing a suit I haven’t seen before, holding a single flower - a peony, white and perfect, like the ones from our wedding.
His face is terrified and hopeful and determined all at once.
“I wanted to do it right this time,” he says. “I wanted to give you-”
“What I should have had all along?”
“What you deserve.” He pulls out my chair. “What you’ve always deserved, and what I was too stupid to give you.”
I sit. He sits.
The city glitters below us like scattered diamonds, and the March wind is sharp, but there are heaters strategically placed, and I barely feel the cold.
“This is…” I look around, taking it all in. “This is a lot.”
“Too much?”
“I didn’t say that.”
A waiter appears - Grayson must have hired him specifically for tonight - and sets down sparkling cider for me and water for Grayson. I notice he’s not drinking. Haven’t seen him drink since the rehearsal dinner, actually.
“You stopped,” I say.
“What?”
“Drinking. You stopped.”
He nods slowly. “After the rehearsal, when I made that toast and then almost-” He stops. “I didn’t like who I was when I was drinking. I didn’t trust myself to make good decisions. So I stopped.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
I study his face. He meets my eyes without flinching.
“Tell me something,” I say.
“Anything.”
“Why did you fall in love with me? The first time. Before everything went wrong.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Because you laughed at my terrible jokes and didn’t pretend they were funnier than they were. Because you argued with me about politics and didn’t back down when I got defensive. Because you looked at me like I was enough, even when I wasn’t sure I was.”
My eyes are stinging. I blink it back.
“And why do you want me back now?” I ask. “After everything?”
“Because you’re still all of that.” He reaches across the table, stops just short of touching my hand.
“Because I watched you lose everything and build something new out of the wreckage. Because you kept a promise when it cost you everything, and that’s the kind of person I want to spend my life trying to deserve. ”
I turn my hand over. Let him take it.
His fingers are warm, familiar, and the contact sends a jolt through me that I try to ignore.
“I’m still angry,” I say.
“I know.”
“I might be angry for a long time.”
“I know that too.”
“And I’m not going to pretend everything is fine just to make this easier.”
“I don’t want you to.” He squeezes my fingers. “I want you. The angry version. The sad version. The version that doesn’t trust me yet. All of it.”
I look at him for a long moment.
The waiter returns with appetizers - the same things we ordered seven years ago, I realize. He remembered. Of course he remembered.
“You memorized our first date,” I say.
“I memorized everything about you.” He picks up his fork, then sets it down again.
“I used to lie awake at night when you were sleeping and just… catalog you. The way your hair fell across the pillow. The sound of your breathing. I was so afraid of losing you that I tried to memorize every detail, in case it was all I had left.”
“That’s either very romantic or very creepy.”
“Probably both.” His mouth curves. “That’s our whole relationship, isn’t it? Somewhere between romantic and creepy.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. A real laugh, surprised out of me.
His face lights up like I’ve given him a gift.
We eat. We talk. He gives me hell about my wine choices - sparkling cider, obviously, but I still swirl the glass and pronounce on its notes anyway - and I take it gladly.
I steal food off his plate like I used to before things got careful between us.
He makes me laugh twice more, real laughs, surprised out of me, and I watch him count each one like a victory.
“I missed this,” I say, somewhere between the appetizers and the main course.
“Missed what?”
“This. Us. Being easy with each other.”
“We can have it again.” He sets down his fork, serious now. “Not the same. I know it won’t be the same. But we can have something. If you’ll let me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re here.” He reaches for my hand again. “And I’m going to spend every day proving that you made the right choice.”
The main course arrives. We eat in comfortable silence for a while, the city sprawling below us, the string lights swaying gently in the wind.
“The nursery,” I say suddenly.
He goes still. “What about it?”
“I never let you see it. All these months, and I kept that door closed.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t-” I pause, trying to find the right words. “It wasn’t punishment. Not entirely. It was the one thing I needed to be mine. The one space where I was building something that couldn’t be taken away.”
“I understood that.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” He meets my eyes. “You needed something that was just yours. Something I couldn’t touch until you decided I’d earned the right. I’m still waiting. I’ll wait as long as you need.”
My throat tightens.
“I want to show you,” I say. “Soon. When we get back.”
His breath catches. “Heather-”
“Not tonight. But soon.”
He nods. His eyes are bright.
***
Dinner ends. The waiter clears the plates. The music shifts to something slower.
And then we’re in his car in the parking garage, and the conversation has gone quiet, and I’m looking at him with something that isn’t quite forgiveness but might be its first cousin.
“Thank you,” I say. “For tonight.”
“Thank you for giving me the chance.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
Silence.
My hand is on his thigh. I don’t remember when that happened.
“Grayson.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t read too much into it.”
I don’t give him time to respond.
My mouth finds his, soft at first, questioning. Testing. Remembering.
And then deeper when he answers. His hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone, and I make a small sound against his lips that I couldn’t have stopped if I tried.
The windows fog.
My hands are in his hair. His mouth is at my throat, finding the spot that always made me gasp, and yes, there it is, that sound, five years of marriage and he still knows exactly how to take me apart.
Headlights sweep through the garage.
We spring apart.
A car door slams somewhere nearby. Maya’s voice, delighted and merciless: “Are you two serious right now? You’re making out in a parking garage like teenagers!”
I’m laughing, breathless, my lipstick smeared, my hair wrecked. I feel seventeen. I feel like everything I almost lost.
“Goodnight, Grayson.”
“Goodnight.”
I get out of the car. Walk toward my sister’s car. Pause.
Look back.
“Same time next week,” I say. “And this time, skip dinner. I’ll just have dessert.”
I slide into Maya’s passenger seat before I can see his reaction, but I hear his laugh through the closed window, and it sounds like hope.
Maya pulls out of the garage, shaking her head.
“Parking garage,” she says. “Really.”
“Shut up.”
“You’ve got lipstick on your chin.”
“I said shut up.”
But I’m grinning. And when I catch my reflection in the side mirror, I barely recognize the woman looking back at me.
She looks happy.