CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #3
I sure as hell wasn’t taking the job in her body and returning to work for my father now that I’d escaped his demoralising clutch. That would be ironically stupid.
‘What will you do with your life, otherwise?’ she asked.
Oof. I wasn’t prepared to get into a conversation like this. ‘Probably sell feet pics.’
Nora slapped my arm. ‘I’m serious. Are you going to keep working my boring job?’
Keep working for a company that strung her along with minimum wage and false pretences? ‘I don’t know. I mean, I’d hate for you to lose your place if we switched back in a year or so.’ I shrugged.
Nora blew out a large breath. ‘A year is so far away, I really thought we’d have more ideas on switching back by now. Besides, do you really want to work a job so beneath you for that long?’
Fuck no.
I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you in class. I didn’t realise how much impact my words had, and I’m only now realising what a dick move it was. But also, that job is beneath you. You’ve got so much potential.’
‘Wow, I should record that apology and make it my ringtone.’ Nora managed a smile with my lips so pure and sincere I thought water was trickling down my spine.
‘You know what? My treat, let’s get dressed up and go somewhere nice.’ I stood to change.
Nora bit her lip. ‘I have a better idea, let’s get dressed down and order something really nice in.’
I wandered to the couch and flopped onto the soft cushions with a grin. ‘Well, it turns out you’re more than a pretty face after all.’
‘Are you calling yourself pretty?’
‘Okay. You’re more than a pretty soul. How’s that?’
‘A pretty soul. I think that’s how everyone should be complimented. A body is just a body after all. It’s our soul and the way we treat each other that really matters.’
My stomach twisted. Noticing her Nora ways in my body had been exactly that. I was noticing her soul.
‘Well, Nora. You have a really nice soul, and I’d like to treat it to some Mexican tonight.’
Nora’s eyes widened. ‘But you hate Mexican.’
‘But I like you.’ I didn’t clarify that I’d come to like her in more ways than a friend.
I’d begun to love the way her excitement over small victories twisted my stomach, and her insistence to fight for the ideas she believed in made my heart beat that bit faster.
I’d stacked everything about her into cherished piles of admiration, and the bundles continued to grow.
I didn’t just want her happiness, I craved it.
Each little piece of success and joy I witnessed burrowed under my skin and nestled into my heart so hard it hurt.
Her cheeks reddened and I looked away, unable to deal with my desperation to find longing in her eyes, too.
I pulled up the menu on my phone and held it in front of her.
‘Choose what you want and don’t skimp. I meant it when I said my treat.
Order anything you want, and what we don’t eat can go in the fridge for tomorrow, or you could take it to work for lunch. ’
‘If I’m choosing the food, you can choose the movie,’ she negotiated so I’d have some input, too.
‘Deal.’
Nora tapped away on my phone, then tossed it to the other side of the couch and stood. ‘Half hour ’til it gets delivered, I’m going to take a shower.’
Desperate to bask in Nora’s heart-clenching happiness for the rest of the evening, I waited for the click of the bathroom door.
I removed my hat and changed into a clean cotton shirt and track-pants, adjusted the cushions on the couch, then tidied the coffee table.
The doorbell rang and I accepted the Mexican.
I grabbed some beers from the fridge and placed them on the clean coffee table, clicked the remote until the movie appeared on the screen, then glanced around my apartment.
My trembling fingers searched for a distraction, but everything sat in place with nothing left to do.
The shower turned off, and my heart pounded.
A few minutes later, Nora appeared in a white cotton shirt and trackpants, too.
‘How embarrassing, we’re wearing the same outfit.’ I gestured between us.
Her eyes gleamed and her mouth stretched in a gorgeous smile. My lips had never been able to form such an easy-going grin without focusing on them with an imaginary angle calculated in my mind.
‘You’re not wearing your hat,’ she noticed.
I shrugged. ‘I know it drives you mad.’
‘I don’t know, it matched my eyes. It’s not so bad when you wear it, after all.’ She closed her eyes and deeply inhaled the Mexican, opening them to see what I’d chosen on TV. ‘There’s no way you chose this movie when you’ve been begging me to watch Star Wars all week.’
My fingers clasped her hands, and I stared into her soul through my eyes.
‘I’m not kidding. I’m trying to make it up to you. You said my pick, now go sit on the couch to eat some Mexican so we can watch Mean Girls.’
Tears pooled in her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. ‘And just when I’d convinced myself you didn’t have a heart.’
I’d had a heart all along, I just didn’t realise it could feel this way.