Chapter 17
I’m half asleep on the couch by the time the apartment door finally opens.
“Hi!” I yell across the room. Jonathan drapes his sweatshirt across the back of a kitchen chair, eyeing the pizza box on the table, its contents already cold.
“Hey, Pheebs.” He smiles with the corner of his mouth, fiddling with the lid of the pizza box until he finally decides to take a slice. He sits down at the table, which is unusual. We usually eat on the couch. Together.
“Sorry it’s cold. I thought you’d be home a few hours ago.”
“It’s all good,” he says between bites. I nod, searching for something to say, but he beats me to it.
“I think I’m gonna turn in early tonight,” he says, rapidly inhaling a single slice and pushing his chair away from the table. “I’m exhausted.”
“Oh, really?” I do nothing to mask my disappointment. “I thought maybe we could hang out for a little.”
His expression softens. “Sure,” he responds with a weak smile.
I pull the Monday crossword up on our TV as he plops down next to me.
It’s common knowledge among the New York Times crossword community that the Monday puzzles are the easiest. I can usually speed through one of them in less than ten minutes, with Jonathan offering an answer here and there.
Our personal best is five minutes and eight seconds.
But tonight, we call it after half an hour and an only partially completed grid.
“I guess my head wasn’t in it tonight,” Jonathan says with a sigh as I lead the way up the stairs.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Mine either.”
“We’ll get our groove back,” he insists.
“Will we?” I ask, turning around to face him, looming over him slightly from the top step.
He pauses before answering. “We will.” He nods, smiling at me without meeting my eyes.
What’s going on in your head, Jonathan?
All it used to take was one glance in his direction to know how he was feeling. I used to be able to read him as effortlessly as one of my romance novels. But recently, his emotions seem tangled up in one another. Like a knotted ball of yarn that I can’t seem to unravel.
“I promise.” He sticks out his hand, and I take it.