Chapter Twenty-One
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We love a project update.
Wolfe
I did not let Warren Hale see the infamous whiteboards.
I’m not a masochist. It was bad enough that my family got to see and be a part of the making of them.
And even worse that someone—if I had to guess, Almond—blabbed about their existence to enough of the town that Warren, of all people, has heard about them.
“Did he have any suggestions for the boards?” Leora asks, munching on a fry in Sterne’s usual booth at Blackwood Brew.
Sterne doesn’t occupy the space with us this time, and I find that it feels a lot smaller without him here.
There’s no buffer—no second-best friend to pat me on the back when I need encouragement or watch my daughter on the video monitor when I get distracted staring at the woman across from me instead.
Ah, right. The video monitor.
I turn my eyes to the black-and-white screen and squint, checking for the telltale movement of Amia’s chest to let me know she’s still breathing.
It’s there, deep and slow, and I relax back into the leather-clad bench.
“Warren actually did have one suggestion,” I answer Leora slowly, unsure if I really want to share Warren’s suggestion for ways I could improve my life now that a certain purple-haired ethereal being is in it.
Leora’s eyebrows rise. “And?”
“And…” No. I do not really want to share Warren’s not-safe-for-work suggestion for ways I could improve my life now that a certain purple-haired ethereal being is in it.
“His suggestion is already something I’m working on,” I settle for.
It’s not a lie, exactly. I am working on it in the sense that I plan to one day express my love to Leora in such a way that she understands it and, potentially, even returns it, thus leading to eventual marriage and the bedroom activities such a joining implies.
Leora slumps. “Oh,” she says. Then, she shrugs. “Whatever. I’m losing steam on this project, anyway. You’re doing all the work yourself, and you’ve hardly needed me at all. It might as well be named WOLFE’S GROWTH ARC: A BLACKWOOD PROJECT.”
I poke at her frown. “Don’t look so disappointed,” I say wryly. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of regressions moving forward.”
She perks up, emerald eyes sparking. “You think? Really?”
My lip twitches. “Definitely,” I assure her. “I am a boy, after all.”
She cheers at this reminder. “Of course. Sorry. I got distracted by your…” She waves her hand, indicating my…? “And I forgot that you’re just a sad little pathetic boy.”
“Beholden to your whims,” I add. “A sad little pathetic boy beholden to your whims.”
Her eyes crinkle at the edges, highlighting shining green gemstones she’s somehow attached to her skin along the line of her eyelashes. “And not Poem’s,” she says.
“And never Poem’s,” I concur.
Leora seems happy enough with this reminder, and returns to her fries with a gusto.
I eye the journal peeking out of her big, white tote bag on the table next to her plate. The tote boasts many patches, pins, and charms, all of which appear to be attached via amateur sewing endeavors and rusty safety pins. It’s cute, and chaotic, and whimsical. Very Leora.
I desperately want her to pull that journal out of it.
Rather than ask for her to do just that, I lift my pint to my mouth and take a long drag.
Leora hums, shifting on her bench as she munches on another fry.
I clear my throat.
Leora raises an eyebrow at me.
I blink.
She munches.
I, finally, catch on.
“Would you mind if we moved on to the performance review portion of the evening?” I ask, politely.
She shrugs a slender shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” Then she doesn’t move.
Right. Okay. Like that, then.
I get the journal out myself, break every boundary known to man by opening her personal journal to the back page, then flip backward until I find her latest entry, which includes five glued-in papers depicting the whiteboards in my office.
I have to flip a few times before I get to the end of the whiteboard photos, and I very intentionally do not read the passage before them, even though I see my name.
Multiple times. Right there, on the page, in her pretty, swooping handwriting.
I push her plate of fries to the side and set the journal in their place.
Leora watches me, half-lidded eyes pleased.
My skin warms under her gaze. “We’re going to do my performance review now,” I inform her.
“Of course,” she murmurs. “I would love nothing more.” She reaches into her tote to pull out a zipper pouch shaped like a frog. She unzips its mouth and reaches in to unearth two pens—red and green.
I sit back in my seat and try not to squirm.
Her pinky-purple lightweight sweater falls off her shoulder, exposing tantalizing skin to the air.
I check my own cardigan, making sure it hasn’t likewise fallen.
The soft material is perfect for sitting under the air conditioning vent that aims at this booth—the reason I suspect that Sterne prefers it—but the smooth yarn is also very good for falling right off my shoulder and down my arm, where it isn’t keeping anyone warm, let alone me.
Thankfully, my cardigan is staying perfectly placed in its correct spot.
Leora doesn’t fix her shirt as she hums over the whiteboard photos.
The air-con keeps air-conning right on us, raising visible goosebumps along her collarbone and over her exposed shoulder, where she should be protected from the frigid air.
I curse and fix it for her, exhaling as my fingertips brush her pebbled skin.
She looks up at me under her lashes, blinks, then shimmies her shoulder so that the sweater falls again.
My breaths shallow.
Keeping eye contact, I fix it again, pressing my fingers harder against her skin, then dragging them up, over her throat and to her jaw. There, I grasp her. “Leave it,” I order lowly. “Do not drive me mad as you tear me apart. Please.”
“Why do you believe I’ll be tearing you apart?” she asks. When it doesn’t appear she’s going to drop her sleeve again, I let her face go and focus on her question.
“Because there is much to tear apart,” I answer, tipping my chin to her pages of tearable Wolfe bits. “I don’t think I’ve had as much growth as you seem to be implying.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies, sliding her hand across the first photo. She presses down, spreading the journal as far open as it will go. “I think you’ll be surprised at how well you’re doing.”
“We’ll see,” I allow, unconvinced.
And then, we do see, and…
She’s right. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
She goes over my pros first, and determines all of my previous pro behavior remains as is. I am still a good, loving dad. I am still an excellent pen pal. I am still good at cutting melon into fun shapes. She circles them all in green, along with the rest as she goes down the list.
Next, she picks up her red pen. “The cons,” she declares, drawing a big circle around the first of the whiteboards depicting my flaws.
Then, she takes her pen, and she crosses out half of them in one fell swoop.
The other half, she marks off one by one, leaving only a couple without a line through them as she goes.
She turns the page and does much the same, and then again, and again.
“Not too many left,” she mutters. “Most of these had the same root, and you’ve been making progress in leaps and bounds.
” Her eyes flick to mine, satisfied. “You’ve done well, Wolfe.
You’re asking for what you want. Sure, you need prodding, but I fully believe that you’ll get to a place where that becomes unnecessary, and probably sooner than I even expect now.
All of the cons left are related to that need.
Once you overcome it, you’ll be completely golden.
” She slams her journal shut with a definitive snap and tosses it carelessly back into her tote.
Her pens get swallowed by the frog, and in they go after it.
I stare at her, agape.
She slides her plate of fries to their previous spot and resumes her munching. “Good meeting,” she says. “Efficient. I like that in a meeting.”
I…
“You really think I’ve already overcome that much?” I ask in a whisper. “That soon?” Surely not. Surely that’s… I mean, it’s too good to be true, isn’t it? It’s too… hopeful to be true.
“I know it,” Leora says soundly, a casual confidence allowing her words to come easy and calm.
“You’ve been doing amazing, Wolfe. I mean, you yelled?
At an entire bar? Full of customers? And beyond that, there’s this…
I don’t know. Vibe about you lately. I know we weren’t ever together in real life before, but I still saw you sometimes—around town, or at the park, or wherever.
I spent most of that time trying to hide from and avoid you, but I still saw you.
And seeing you, it was impossible to miss the sort of…
” She shakes her head, frustrated as the word she wants doesn’t come.
“Sorry. You just always seemed a little like life was happening to you, instead of you happening to life. Now, I won’t say that you’re taking life by the throat and making it yours, but you’re certainly not letting it happen around you.
You’re not the water flowing through banks formed without your effort.
You are the water surging forward, carving a path slowly but surely that will one day change the very environment you inhabit.
You’re making curves in the earth, steadily and purposefully.
You still have the softness of the soft river in you, but now you have more access to the raging current beneath, too.
It’s a balance, and you’re learning it well.
” She grabs my hand, pulls it to her cheek, and nestles her face in it, a simile of a hug.
“I’m proud of you, Wolfe, and you should be, too. You’re doing well.”
I should tell her I love her. Right now, I should tell her I’m in love with her.
How could I not be in love with her when that’s how she sees me?
So clearly into my depths? And she’s still here, patient and caring and helping, for no reason other than that she’s amazing, and beautiful, and so, so lovely.
She sees a broken me, and she builds him up, and she doesn’t ask for anything in return.
I want to give her everything. Now. All that I am, and all that I’ve ever been, and all that I ever will be.
A flicker of movement in my peripheral vision catches my eye, and I drop my gaze from Leora’s to check the video monitor. On it, Amia shifts, but doesn’t wake.
Will Amia feel the same way as I do about Leora? Will she love her this much?
Will Leora love her back, just the same?
I think so.
I hope so.
I… don’t know. Not for sure—not guaranteed.
I take a deep breath, and I force myself to see past my emotions to the responsibilities and people I need to consider.
I cannot forget Amia’s care in my love for Leora, and I cannot forget Leora’s care in my love for Amia. I need to be cautious, even as my thundering heart yearns for me to move forward, crash against the banks, and claim what’s mine.
In every other area, I can go forth with the current I create.
In this… I need to be smart, too. I need to take charge, yes, but in a different way.
I need to find the balance that Leora believes I’m on my way to mastering—the soft and the hard, the flowing river’s surface and the raging current beneath.
I will wait. I will see how Amia and Leora interact together outside of a grocery store accosting, and I will take care with each of them as we navigate the new that we already have without adding the newness of a love declaration to the mix.
For now, it will be enough that Leora is here, and that she sees me, and that my heart feels hope for a future where she could be a person I do the things that Warren Hale thinks I should do with her.
I turn away from the monitor and face Leora, who remains cuddled against my hand. I grab her free one, place it on my own face, and give her the semblance of a hug back.
“Thank you,” I tell her. Two words instead of three.
“Always,” she replies.
And I believe her, because I no longer live hopeless.