Chapter 47
47
Haruki - 31 years old
Two weeks later
T he restaurant looks like it was specifically designed to be posted on Instagram. In fact, it looks so pretty that some of our clients request to do their engagement shoots here. But it’s not the aesthetics that usually drive people to come to this greenhouse-turned-dining establishment, it’s the produce that the restaurant owners use from their small farm just outside of Copenhagen.
“So farm-to-table is a really big concept in Denmark, huh?” Bryce asks as he takes his credit card and slips it back into his wallet.
“Yep. I think I even read somewhere that the Danes buy the most organic things worldwide.”
“You ready to head back?” Bryce tilts his head to the entrance. When I nod, he gives me a polite smile, just like one does during a first date, and says, “Come, I’ll walk you home.”
The moment we get out of the building, the April night chill seeps through my bones. I remember lots of nights walking through this street with Kate and Torben, back when I was doing my second master’s degree, drunk off cheap wine. I spent a few of those strolls stuck in my own head, reminiscing about the time I ran away from home at eighteen. It’s surreal to see Bryce in the flesh being here with me.
“So, what’s your stance on kids?” Bryce suddenly asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Uh, what?”
“Oh, you know,” he says with a smirk on his face. “It’s a question people usually ask during a first date. To see whether they’re compatible or not.”
I snort at his statement. Everything between us has always been so ridiculous, even this date, but it doesn’t feel awkward. “I don’t want kids,” I tell him the truth. I don’t remember us ever having this discussion when we were younger, but I was never crazy about being a mom. “I work too much; plus, I travel a lot. I love my life as it is, and it wouldn’t be fair to my kid or to my partner. I think I’d be happy playing the role of the fun aunt for the rest of my life.”
“Really?” I can’t tell if he’s amused or disappointed at my answer. “I don’t want them, either.”
“ Really ?” I throw his word back to him, squinting my eyes. “You’re not just saying that because I don’t want kids?”
“If I did want them, I’d be upfront with my dates. It’s not like my biological clock is not ticking,” he teases. “I have Birdie and she’s enough for me. She’s like my own anyway, and I love her to death. But I’ve changed my fair share of diapers in my early twenties. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I’m in no rush to do it again.”
Hearing Bryce say that makes me retreat back into my own head and replay my own memories from my early twenties. Of Bryce telling me that Lily was pregnant. Although he stepped up to the plate, it never occurred to me that taking care of a child was not something that he actively signed up for. Lily was so young, but so was Bryce. They were kids raising a kid. He always had this calm and easygoing demeanor, but life must have been hard for him once Birdie was born, and I have no doubt that he never gave them anything less than one hundred percent.
A few people pass us on their bikes, causing me to scoot closer to Bryce. He puts his arm around my waist in a protective gesture, and at this moment, I feel my heart thundering in my chest. As far as first dates go, it’s hitting all the checkmarks of a successful one. Good food. Good conversation. A gentleman.
We finally come to a stop in front of a moss-green apartment building. “This is me,” I announce in front of the front door, turning my body so I'm facing him. “Thank you for the nice night. I had a lot of fun catching up.” This feels a lot like déjà vu, wondering whether he’s going to come inside with me or not. Unlike last time, I’m not a shy eighteen-year-old anymore. I know what I want, so I ask, “Do you want to come up for a drink?”
“Thank God,” he says with a grin. “I thought I was going to have to pull the I’m-too-drunk-to-walk-back-to-my-place trick again.”
I shake my head as I bite my bottom lip, trying to hide my smile that threatens to come out the whole way up to my apartment. I close the door behind me and let Bryce take in my living space. There’s a lot of dusty pink and purple—perks of living alone. The place might look extremely girly, and men might feel out of place here, but I’m proud of my apartment. I’ve paid for everything here myself by doing the thing that I love the most.
“Make yourself at home, I’ll open a bottle of wine for us.”
Bryce nods as he gives himself a tour of the place and studies the different pictures and decorations scattered all around. I quickly scan the surroundings to make sure that there isn’t any embarrassing dirty laundry hiding somewhere, and almost have a heart attack when I see the door to my home office ajar. By the way his body turns to a steel pipe under his sweater and jeans, I know he notices what’s inside. At least parts of it. Enough to know what it is.
I tell him to stop, but Bryce is faster. He takes quick steps and swings the door wide open, turning the light switch on. I blitz toward him, standing behind him, and seeing what’s hanging on the wall in front of his face. Nestled between framed photographs of a couple on a bridge and the sunrise at Paje beach in Zanzibar is a picture of Bryce. The one I took on the first day that we met. Eighteen-year-old Bryce is smiling as he clutches his sneakers, his bare feet dipped in the water.
Turning his head around, he reveals a shit-eating grin. “Haruki,” he breathes out my name in a winning voice just like he did all those years ago when he found out that I had ironed my clothes for him. “Did you spend our time apart looking at this picture every time you thought of me?”
I try to laugh. I try to come up with something smart. Instead, I just say, “No. The sunrise looks nice on it.” My blood turns into liquid heat at the embarrassment. I don’t even know why I have him blown up to triple the size of the Mona Lisa painting at the Louvre.
Bryce taps on his phone, not saying a word. The smugness is still plastered all over his face. When he finally finds what he’s looking for, he shows me his screen. It’s a picture of his own home office. “Not as nice as yours, though. But I had to make do.”
I knit my eyebrows. “Do you need tips on how to decorate?” Why is he showing me this random picture of his laptop?
“For fuck’s sake.” He snatches the phone and gives it back to me after zooming in on his desk. It’s grainy, but I see it. A small, framed picture of the same beach and the same sunrise. In the corner, I see a quarter of a head with green ombré hair. I look up to him and see hope glimmering in his eyes.