29. Now This?
NOW THIS?
LUCY
Iam not eavesdropping.
I want to be clear about that, for the record, for the court of my own conscience.
I am not eavesdropping.
I am coming downstairs at nine-fifteen in the morning to go to the diner, like I do, because I work there.
I hear Fox’s voice first.
I stop on the third step from the bottom because the window is cracked open to the morning air, and his voice carries. And the sound of it—the unguarded quality of it—stops me the way it always has.
“—wasn’t like anything I’d been told it would be.”
A pause. A glass clinks softly.
“I kept waiting for it to be loud.”
Dina says something I can’t hear.
“Exactly,” Fox says. “Everyone said you’d know. Like a door slamming. That didn’t happen for me.”
Another pause.
“My father talked about my mother like she was a decision he’d made. The right one. The logical one.”
Dina murmurs something.
“Yeah,” Fox says softly. “Percy’s parents are the real thing. You can see it from across the room. It looks like—”
Another murmur.
“—like the weather. Something atmospheric. Something you feel before you name it.”
A beat.
“I spent four years with Reina telling myself what I felt was love because it was loud.”
My stomach drops.
Reina?
“It had urgency. Jealousy. When I found out what she did, it hurt the way I expected love to hurt. And I think I confused ego with heart and pain with proof.”
I sit down on the third step. My legs decide that before my brain has a say in it.
“And then Lucy—”
His voice changes when he says my name.
It does something to my ribs.
“It wasn’t loud,” he says quietly. “I kept waiting for it to be loud. And when it wasn’t, I decided something must be missing.”
He laughs softly.
“I had seventeen words for what I felt, and none of them were the right ones. Because none of them were loud enough.”
Dina asks something.
“When did I figure it out?” Fox repeats. “Gradually. And then all at once.”
I hear glassware against the counter.
“The waiting room.”
My breath catches.
“Four days in those chairs. Running out of ways to imagine what I’d do if she didn’t wake up.”
His voice drops.
“That wasn’t loud either. It was just…everywhere.”
Silence.
“But she still doesn’t believe me.”
That lands in my ribs like a punch.
“She’s getting there,” Dina says.
“I want to explain it to her,” Fox says. “Not around her.”
Enough.
I stand up.
I walk down the last three steps.
I push open the kitchen door.
Fox is behind the counter, drying glasses.
Dina is drinking coffee and looks at me like a woman who knows exactly how guilty she should feel.
Fox puts the glass he’s been wiping down. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
He nods.
“Dina,” I say.
“Absolutely,” she replies instantly. “I have ordering to do.”
Traitor.
The kitchen door closes behind her.
I look at Fox.
“Talk to me,” I say. “Not Dina. Not Percy.” I jab a finger at my chest. “Me.”
He studies me for a moment. Then nods.
“Okay.”
He comes around the counter and settles beside me.
“My father loved my mother the way you love a correct decision,” he says. “With satisfaction.”
I cross my arms.
“That sounds romantic.”
He exhales.
“It was stable. Reliable. Respectable. And I learned from it without realizing I was learning.”
“You learned love was…paperwork?”
“More or less.”
“And Reina?” I ask, my heart throbbing.
“That was loud.”
Of course it was.
“It was urgent. Jealous. Consuming. And when it ended, it hurt loudly too.”
He looks at me.
“So I thought that must be love.”
“And I wasn’t?” I say sharply.
“You were,” he says immediately. “I just didn’t recognize it.”
I shake my head. “That’s convenient.”
“No, sweetheart, convenient is one thing this is not.”
“Fox, you said you didn’t love me. You seemed very sure.”
“I was,” he says quietly. “I was certain about the wrong thing.”
Silence stretches.
Then he says softly, “And then there was the tree.”
I blink.
“The fig tree you planted.”
My breath catches.
“For the three days you were gone,” he says, “I went back to the house and watered it.”
He looks directly at me.
“Before coffee. Before anything.”
My chest tightens.
“Before I knew how I felt.”
The kitchen is silent.
“That’s not fear of loss,” he says quietly. “Fear of loss is loud. Urgent. It arrives in a crisis and leaves when the crisis does.”
He holds my gaze.
“I was out there in the ordinary morning. Because it needed water. Because you asked me to.”
A pause.
“Because taking care of the thing you made felt like the most natural thing I’d ever done.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s not a crisis response.”
My ribs hurt.
“Fox,” I whisper.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
I give him a long, deliberate look. “You’re an idiot.”
He lets out a short laugh. “Yes.”
“A spectacular one.”
“I’ve been told.”
I fix my gaze on him, weighing my next words before I say them. “You had something real in front of you and talked yourself out of it for two years because it wasn’t dramatic enough.”
“Yes.”
“I’m also an idiot,” I mutter.
“Why?”
“Because I never believed someone like you could love someone like me.”
He goes still.
Then says simply, “I love you.”
I draw in an unsteady breath. “I’m still…angry.”
“Fair.”
“And scared.”
“Also fair.”
He leans closer. “I’m not asking you to forget, sweetheart. I’m asking you to watch what I do. In the ordinary mornings.”
He looks at me like I’m it. Like there’s nothing else he needs.
I tip my chin in acknowledgment. “Okay.”
His eyes sharpen. “Now say it,” he commands.
“You think you earned it?” I say with lofty pretension.
The sound he makes is somewhere between a growl and a chuckle. “I can always seduce you into saying it.”
I tilt my head, considering his words with feigned hauteur. “That’s a compelling argument.”
He kisses me.
Deep.
Certain.
When he pulls back, I lick my lips. “One question.”
He nuzzles my nose. “Yes.”
“Are you still in love with Reina?”
He blinks. “Reina?”
“Yes. The woman you said you loved.”
“Lucy,” he says slowly.
I swallow. “Yes?”
He waits till he holds my gaze. “No.”
“Oh.”
“The only woman I love, have ever loved, will ever love is you.”
My heart goes thump, thump, thump, thump. I manage to choke out, “Well, good.”
He laughs.