Chapter 19
Our hotel room was so high it made Mikko’s penthouse seem low to the ground. I’d adjusted to the view of downtown Denver and the mountains beyond, but nothing prepared me for the full impact of New York City lights gleaming through our hotel window.
Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across the entire far wall, overlooking a city that somehow looked even bigger from up here than it had from the plane.
Glass towers reflected the sunset, cars crawled through the streets so far below they looked like little toys, and somewhere in the distance, I caught a sliver of water glinting between buildings.
“Wow.”
The word slipped out before I could come up with anything more eloquent. In all the plans I’d ever made for myself, travel was low on the list. Sure, I wanted to, but it had always seemed like one of those ‘if I won the lottery’ type things. Not a random Friday in November.
“We have a problem,” Mikko said from behind me.
Leena squealed in delight, clearly not feeling the same as her dad.
I turned toward him, taking in the room for the first time. The main door opened into a living room of sorts—a couch, a chair, a small desk with a lamp. A portable crib was already set up too, so that wasn’t the issue.
Mikko stood in a doorway to a second room, and I peeked around him to see what he was so concerned about.
One king-size bed sat in the other room, filling up the space.
“I’m sorry,” Mikko said, looking back over his shoulder toward the couch. “I can—”
I gently shoved him into the room, Leena following behind him.
“No one is taking the couch, Mikko. We’ve already gone through this once, and we’ll make it through again.”
“How long do you think you’ll hide in the bathroom before you get into bed tonight?”
I grabbed a pillow off the bed and smacked him with it. “Husbands don’t use that kind of information against their wives. I was in crisis mode.”
A deep laugh rumbled out of him. “Oh, I see. You only call me your husband when it’s a weapon.”
“Only if you’re being an ass, husband.”
I swung to hit him with the pillow again, but he caught it before it connected. His smile was wide, blue eyes shining like I so rarely saw.
“I like hearing you say it.”
I shook my head, feeling my cheeks warm. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
Leena chose that moment to climb up and flop face-first onto the mattress, arms and legs spread as wide as they could go.
“Quick. Move fast before she decides we can’t sleep here at all.”
That earned me another laugh.
While I dug out my toiletries, Mikko disappeared into the other room long enough to grab Leena’s pajamas before returning to the bedroom. Leena babbled a whole slew of sounds, then sat up when she saw her dad, arms stretched overhead in silent demand.
“Ready for bed?” he said, nice and slow like I encouraged him. “Let’s put on your pajamas.”
She turned around and waved to me, muttering what sounded like an attempt at night-night.
I smiled to myself as I folded tomorrow’s clothes over the back of the chair in the corner, trying and failing not to watch. I loved watching them together, memorizing these little moments. Mikko had only been a dad for a few months, but he was so good at it.
Every movement was instinct now. He knew exactly how she liked to be held, exactly how to encourage her to speak, exactly which stuffed animal she’d search for before bed. There wasn’t any hesitation anymore. Just quiet, uncomplicated love.
Leena yawned hard enough that her whole body shook, worn out from the excitement today and the weird nap she’d had this afternoon.
I kissed her cheek when they passed me, headed for the other room. Within ten minutes, they’d read a book, and she was tucked into the portable crib with her moose clutched against her chest, out cold. Mikko dimmed the light before turning back toward me.
“That went surprisingly well.”
He looked over his shoulder into the other room, that same smile he wore every time he looked at his daughter spreading over his face. “Hopefully it lasts. This time change is no joke for a little body.”
I walked back into the bedroom, thinking he’d follow me.
Instead, he pointed to the door. “I’m going to run downstairs.”
As if reading the confusion in my eyes, he added, “Just grabbing something, then I’ll be right back.”
With the hotel room to myself, I grabbed my toiletries and headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Part of me felt a little stupid for not realizing that we’d be sharing a bed on every single road trip we took this year, but the dawning reality felt a lot larger now that I was staring down my first night of many with him.
I changed into an oversized t-shirt and leggings before leaning over the bathroom counter to wash my face. My phone sat propped against the mirror while the language app I had downloaded chirped through another Finnish lesson.
Today it was adjectives.
“Sin? olet hauska,” the cartoon character said.
I rubbed moisturizer into my face, repeating it back.
The words felt clunky on my tongue, but better than they had when I started this a few weeks ago.
Part of me wondered if Leena’s speech delay was tied to growing up bilingual—Mikko had never said whether Ava spoke Finnish or English to her.
Maybe he didn’t even know. But kids were far more adaptable to language than adults, and I wanted to help her find her voice, no matter what language it was in.
“Sin? olet hauska,” I repeated.
“You’re right, I am funny,” Mikko said from outside the doorway.
I jumped, my hand clenched over my heart. “Oh my god, you scared me.”
“Sorry. I was trying to be quiet.”
But the grin on his face didn’t look sorry.
I squinted. “How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to hear your Finnish lessons.” He pointed at my phone. “Is that for me?”
“For Leena,” I clarified, but Mikko only grinned harder. “I wasn’t sure which language she understood.”
“So you’re learning a new one.”
“It’s not new.” I adjusted my messy bun, then walked toward the bed. “It’s new to me.”
Mikko brushed a hand along his jaw, like he was trying to wipe the grin off his face. Before he could say anything else, I noticed the pizza boxes on the dresser.
“For me?” I pointed at the boxes.
He shrugged, then grabbed the two boxes and sat on the bed. “It felt wrong to be in New York and not have pizza.”
I grinned, then sat on the bed next to him. Once I was settled, he opened the top box, this one full of toppings. I lifted the lid on the second box, grinning wider when I saw plain cheese waiting for me.
“You got me a pizza.”
Mikko said nothing, handing me a paper plate and pulling a slice out for me. The cheese stretched, looking a little greasy and delicious. “Have as much as you like.”
I took a bite, savoring the garlicky, cheesy goodness, while watching him out of the corner of my eye.
Mikko served himself after I took my first bite, taking a slice of his own pizza.
“Do you even know what all of those toppings are?” I asked, inspecting his pizza. Peppers, onions, mushrooms, sausage, and pepperoni I recognized, but there were other ingredients on there I’d never seen before, as well as a little sauce packet I was confused by.
“It was their menu special. Figured if it’s what they sell the most of, it must be good.”
I leaned over to look closer, and Mikko pushed the box toward me. “Want to try it?”
“Not really.”
He laughed, then finished his first slice and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Fair. You know what you like.”
It seemed silly to appreciate that he didn’t push me on something so trivial, but I realized that was exactly who Mikko was. Sure, there was an undercurrent beneath the surface full of anxiety and vulnerability, but on the surface Mikko was deeply thoughtful and good to his core.
I liked cheese pizza, and maybe I liked him too.
“Is this your favorite food?” Mikko asked when he put another piece on my plate.
“I don’t know about favorite, but I love it.”
“Is there a story behind that?”
Maybe on another day I would have said no, but I couldn’t help but notice all the ways Mikko opened up his life and heart to me. After my conversations with Walt and Lori, maybe it was time I did the same.
“Lori used to take me for pizza a lot.”
“Beckett’s mom?”
“Yeah.” I sighed, setting my pizza to the side. “After my dad went to prison, my grandma got custody of me. I won’t sugar-coat it—it was terrible, but that’s a story for another day.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I gave a little half-smile, looking down at the pizza again.
“Lori taught English at our school, and she knew I loved to read. I’ve since realized that she did a lot of things for me, knowing I needed help.
But at the time, I was a kid in a shitty situation and she offered me a way to earn free pizza by reading books. ”
“That was a program, right?”
“Book-It, yeah. But you had to have a Pizza Hut for that to work, and the closest Pizza Hut was over a hundred miles away from Linwood.”
“I see.”
“She made up her own program, gave me rides to and from the library, and even bought the pizza with her own money. All to help me without me realizing that’s what she was doing.”
Mikko leaned back, his hands on the bed.
With someone else, the quiet might have been unsettling after such a vulnerable admission, but with Mikko it didn’t feel like that.
This felt like he wasn’t rushing me. Like he was giving me the time and space to decide how much I wanted to share.
All of it, none of it… whatever I wanted.
“We were so poor, Mikko,” I went on, unable to stop it now that I’d started.
“I looked at the menu, and cheese pizza was the cheapest, so I chose it every time. I knew I could have asked for anything and Lori would have given it to me, but even then, I knew the less I asked for, the more people accepted me.”
I dropped my head into my hands, pushing on my eyes, and still Mikko said nothing. But his hand reached out and rested on my leg, telling me he was there.
“It’s been hard to unlearn that.”