22. Nina
— ? —
Nina
Cole tells me about the bills himself.
We’re sitting in his apartment, the one above the café on Thames Street, watching the harbor through windows that need cleaning.
His color is better now, the treatment toxicity resolved, the next round of chemo scheduled for Monday.
He looks almost like himself. The pill organizer I bought him sits on the windowsill - the days-of-the-week boxes I used to fill in secret, back when this apartment was the scene of my supposed crime - and the sight of it, ordinary now, out in the open, still does something complicated to my chest.
“I have to tell you something,” he says.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s about Adrian.”
I set down my tea. “What about him?”
“The medical bills.” Cole won’t meet my eyes. He’s picking at the arm of his chair, which is how I know this is real - Cole doesn’t fidget for anything less than a confession. “Everything you paid - the treatment, the hospital stays, the medications. He paid it back. All of it.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“He contacted my doctor’s billing office. Paid off every balance. Set up a fund to cover everything going forward.” Cole finally looks at me. “He didn’t want you to know.”
“When?”
“Right after the gala.”
I sit back in my chair, trying to process. Right after the gala, Adrian and I were barely speaking. The night at the cottage had happened, but nothing was settled. I was still holding him at arm’s length, still building walls.
And he was quietly making sure Cole never had to worry about money again.
“How much?” I ask, because my brain has decided to be practical about this instead of feeling it, which is a coward’s move and I know it.
“Nina.”
“How much, Cole?”
“All of it.” He says it gently. “The appeals you were still fighting. The balances I hadn’t told you about because you’d already given enough.
The stuff coming down the road - scans, follow-ups, the maintenance rounds if the numbers keep going the right way.
” He spreads his hands. “There’s a fund.
It has my name on it. The billing lady called me ‘Mr. Reeves’ like I was somebody. I almost asked her to say it again.”
I look out at the harbor. A ferry crawls across the gray water, patient and small.
“He didn’t tell you,” Cole continues, “because he didn’t want you to think he was trying to buy forgiveness. Or using me as leverage.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because you need to know.” He reaches across and takes my hand. “Nina, I’ve watched you two dance around each other for months now. I’ve seen how hard he’s been trying, and I’ve seen how scared you are to trust it. And I get it - I really do. What he did was unforgivable.”
“But?”
“But he didn’t do this so you’d forgive him.” Cole squeezes my hand. “He did it because it was the right thing to do. That’s why it matters.”
I look at our joined hands. At the IV port visible under Cole’s skin. At this man who has been my anchor through everything, who knows me better than almost anyone in the world.
“Do you remember the pastries?” I ask.
He blinks at the swerve. Then his face softens, because of course he remembers. “The day-olds.”
“The day-olds.” Nineteen years old, both of us, splitting stale croissants from the café bins after close because neither of us could afford fresh ones, sitting on the loading dock with our feet swinging. “We used to toast with them. Like champagne.”
“‘To being rich someday,’” Cole recites, lifting an invisible croissant. “‘To never eating garbage again.’”
“And now a man is paying your hospital bills out of pocket money, and I live in a cottage I bought myself, and your numbers are getting better every week.” My voice wobbles on the last part. Hope is still a word I can’t say flat. “Nineteen-year-old us would lose their minds.”
“Nineteen-year-old us,” Cole says, “would ask why you’re sitting in my apartment instead of going home to the man.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple. It’s just not that easy. Different things.” He lets go of my hand to point at me, professorial. “You’re allowed to be afraid. You’re allowed to take your time. But don’t let fear stop you from seeing what’s actually happening. He’s changing, Nina. For real.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s not just trying to win you back.
” Cole meets my eyes. “He’s trying to deserve you.
And there’s a difference. I’ve had a front-row seat to both versions of that man - the one who paid for things to own them, and the one who pays for things and hides it. Trust me. The second one is new.”
“I’m still afraid,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“What if he hurts me again?”
“Then I’ll personally throw champagne on him at the next gala.” Cole grins. “In front of God and Newport and everyone. I’ve seen it done. Very effective. Ruins the whole social season.”
I laugh - a real laugh - and something loosens in my chest.
“When did you become the wise one?” I ask.
“Cancer.” He shrugs. “It gives you perspective. Also, I’ve been watching a lot of daytime television. Deeply philosophical stuff.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
I stare at my untouched tea. At the steam rising from the cup.
At the pill organizer on the windowsill, filled this week by a man who once memorized a patient number and built a betrayal out of it, and who now drives my best friend to chemo and fixes his faucet and pays his bills in secret and asks for nothing.
I think about that all the way home.
The walls around my heart don’t come down.
But for the first time, I notice a door in them - and I can’t tell if I’m more terrified of opening it or leaving it closed.
***
Cole’s treatment is working.
We sit at Brenton Point watching the sailboats, the three of us on a blanket that Adrian produced from his trunk along with a cooler, folding chairs he apologized for, and enough food for a small wedding.
He overpacks now. For everything. I’ve decided not to examine what that’s about, because I suspect the answer is he’s terrified of us ever needing something he didn’t bring, and that answer makes my chest hurt.
“The latest labs were good,” Cole says, tilting his face toward the sun like a cat. “Best numbers since I started treatment. Morrison used the word ‘remarkable.’ I made her say it twice.”
“That’s wonderful.” I squeeze his hand. “I told you it would work.”
“You told me a lot of things. Some of them were even accurate.”
I throw a piece of grass at him. He catches it, laughing, and tucks it behind his ear like a boutonnière.
Beside me, Adrian is quiet. He’s been quiet a lot lately - not the tense silence of before, but something softer.
Patient. He’s watching the sailboats with his forearms on his knees and the wind off the water messing up his hair, and he looks younger than he has in a year, and I am absolutely not staring at the line of his jaw.
I redirect my attention to the sailboats with tremendous dignity.
The sailboats do not have forearms. The sailboats did not spend the last three months learning to knock. It’s fine. Everything is fine. I am a grown pregnant woman having entirely appropriate thoughts at a picnic, while my best friend pretends not to watch us like a nature documentary.
“Thank you,” Cole says suddenly.
I look at him. “For what?”
“Not for what. For whom.” He turns to Adrian.
“For not being an ass about all of this. For paying the bills I couldn’t.
For showing up at the gala instead of leaving her to face it alone.
For the faucet, and the smoke detectors, and the fact that my refrigerator has been mysteriously full for two months. ”
Adrian blinks. “That’s - I was just-”
“Being a decent human being. I know. Novel concept.” Cole grins. “The point is, you didn’t have to do any of it. Especially not the bills thing. You could have watched me struggle and felt justified, given how things looked. But you didn’t.”
“You’re Nina’s family,” Adrian says quietly. “That makes you mine too.”
The words hang in the air. I watch Cole’s expression shift through surprise into something like acceptance - and then, because he is Cole, into mischief.
“Well,” he says finally. “I suppose I can tolerate you, then.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t get used to it. I have a reputation.
” He levers himself up off the blanket - easier than a month ago, so much easier, and I catch Adrian tracking the movement the same way I do, both of us running our quiet inventories of Cole’s body - and brushes off his jeans.
“I’m going to walk to the point and back.
Doctor’s orders. Also, you two are being weird and adjacent, and it’s exhausting to watch. ”
“We’re not being weird,” I say.
“You’re being extremely weird. There’s about a foot of blanket between you and you’re both defending it like it’s the Alamo.” He salutes us with the grass boutonnière. “Work it out. I’ll walk slowly.”
He goes. We watch him make his way along the rocks - thin still, but upright, his shadow long on the grass - and the foot of blanket between me and my husband becomes the loudest thing on the point.
“He’s better,” Adrian says.
“He’s better.”
“Every week, a little more.” He shakes his head slowly, eyes on Cole’s retreating back. “I spent months seeing him as a threat instead of what he actually is - your family. Your brother, basically. I was too busy being jealous to notice I was watching you save someone’s life.”
“And now?”
“Now I see him. Really see him.” He turns to face me on the blanket, and the wind pushes a strand of hair across my face, and his hand rises to move it and stops - hovers - retreats.
He asks now. Even for that. “And I see what you were doing, all those months. What you sacrificed to keep his secret. How much it cost you.”
“Adrian-”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not trying to win points.” He meets my eyes. “I just wanted you to know that I understand now. What loyalty looks like. What it costs. And I want to be worthy of yours.”
The sincerity in his voice makes my chest ache. Out on the water, a sailboat leans hard into the wind, righting itself at the last possible second, the way they do. The way we might.
“One date,” I hear myself say.
He stares at me. “What?”
“One date. Nothing more.” I hold up a hand when he starts to speak. “I’m not saying I forgive you. I’m not saying this changes everything. But I’m... willing to see. To see if the man you’re becoming is someone I can trust.”
“Nina-”
“One date,” I repeat. “And we start from scratch. No history. No assumptions. Just two people trying to figure out if they fit together.”
He’s quiet. His jaw works. His eyes have gone suspiciously bright, and he looks away at the water until they behave.
“Okay,” he says.
“Friday night.”
“Friday night.”
“And Adrian?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t try to impress me. Just... be who you are now.”
He reaches out. Takes my hand. His thumb crosses my knuckles once, careful as a question.
“I can do that,” he says.
And I believe him.
Down the point, Cole has stopped walking. He’s standing on the rocks with his back to us, ostensibly watching the boats, but his fist is raised over his head in silent, shameless victory.
“He’s watching us,” Adrian says.
“He’s been watching us the whole time.”
“Should we tell him we can see him?”
“God, no.” I lean back on my hands, letting the sun hit my face, letting my hand stay in my husband’s. “Let him have this. He’s dying.”
“He’s getting better.”
“He’ll take whichever one wins the argument. It’s his only perk. Let him have it.”