Chapter 36
It was going to take almost a full day of travel to get to Greece from Tucson, with layovers in Chicago and Brussels—not to mention the three-hour drive from Athens to Kontovazaina.
Niko was grateful to have a companion for once, even though he could tell as soon as his mother got in the car to the airport she wasn’t in a talkative mood.
They had time to kill before their first flight, so he picked up some snacks at the airport newsstand as she browsed the thrillers. His phone buzzed in his pocket while he waited in line, so he juggled his Snickers, beef jerky, and gum in one hand in order to pull it out.
It was Larry, who Niko didn’t think had ever called him in his life.
After some brief, confusing small talk about how Niko was liking Tucson, Larry cleared his throat.
“Listen,” he said. “I was just calling to see how you’re holding up. With everything.” He paused. “With Merritt.”
By now, Niko was near the giant windows looking out at the tarmac, the sun blindingly bright all of a sudden.
The answer, of course, was “fucking terribly,” but he doubted Larry was calling to offer him a post-breakup shoulder to cry on.
“Uh, what about her?” he asked cautiously.
Larry paused again, but this one felt weightier. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?” His heart began pounding. Was she hurt? Was she in trouble?
“She came by the market the other day while Bruce’s daughter was working. Apparently she bought something, uh…personal.”
Niko racked his brain for what this could possibly mean. “What, like tampons?”
“No. Like the opposite.”
Niko was so annoyed at being forced to play gossip charades that it took a beat for the full weight of it to hit him. Now he understood why Larry had called him: out of all the residents of Crested Peak, the older men were the biggest busybodies of all.
“Oh.”
He stared blankly at the planes slowly rolling in front of him, the tiny figures in fluorescent vests down below.
In a way, it felt like he’d been bracing to hear this his whole life. The fate he’d always been heading for, predestined, none of his actions making any difference in the end.
He expected dread to wash over him, thick and suffocating, his choices narrowed to a single arrow. Instead, it was like a secret door unlocked inside him, and he was suddenly facing the possibility he’d never allowed himself to hope for.
A future with Merritt where “forever” was on the table.
It was more complicated than that, obviously. But right now, all he wanted to do was follow that arrow all the way back to her door.
He wasn’t sure how his conversation with Larry ended, but he blinked and was sitting next to his mother again. She did a double take at his expression, closing her book immediately.
“Are you okay?”
Niko rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair before sitting upright again with a sigh.
“Remember when you asked me before if I was seeing someone? Well, I was. Up until I left. And I, uh…I think she might be…” He trailed off, torn between wanting to confide in his mother and respecting Merritt’s privacy.
His mother’s face went pale; she clearly didn’t need him to finish. “Was that her?”
He shook his head. “No. I haven’t spoken to her since I left.”
“That bad?” she asked with a sympathetic frown.
I think you should leave before I wake up. The memory of her flat, emotionless voice sent a ripple of nausea through him. “It was kind of…nothing.”
“It was nothing?” Her expression shifted to confusion.
“No, I mean, it was everything. I don’t think I’m explaining this right.” He dropped his head back into his hands in frustration. “I knew I was leaving, so we said it would just be for the summer. But…” He trailed off again.
“But…you fell in love with her?” Niko felt his face flush, and he nodded mutely. “Why didn’t you stay, then?” she continued. “If you had something that big keeping you there?”
Niko opened his mouth, ready to offer one of the dozen reasons he’d been giving over the last few months.
The lack of stability, the search for a more conventional direction, the needs of his family.
Every excuse he’d come up with to convince himself the life he’d built there wasn’t good enough.
That he wasn’t good enough, just as he was.
But instead, what he said was: “Because I don’t know if she feels the same way.”
“Well, are you going to call her?” his mother pressed.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if she wants to hear from me. I mean, I don’t even know if she is pregnant. And if she is, I don’t know if she’ll want to keep it.”
His mother’s brow creased, and she glanced away before meeting his eyes again. “Would that change things for you?”
“No,” he said, surprised at the speed of his response, barely needing to think about it. “But if she is, I want to be there for her. Fuck, I want to be there for her even if she isn’t. I just…I just want to be with her.”
His voice cracked as he said it, and it wasn’t the only thing that was cracking—it felt like he was fully coming apart at the seams, desperately trying to hold himself together as his entire world nonchalantly flipped upside down.
His mother raised her eyebrows. “So, what are you waiting for?”
He met her gaze, his heart thundering rapidly in his chest. “What do you mean? We’re boarding in fifteen minutes.”
She tsked. “You think I want to spend the next twenty-two hours sitting next to you moping like that? The last week has been bad enough.”
He blinked at her, uncomprehending, and an indulgent smile spread across her face. Before he knew what he was doing, he was half out of his seat, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. He hesitated. “Wait. Will you be all right? Seeing them on your own?”
She waved her hand. “You got me this far, I can handle the rest. Catch up with us in a few days. I bet you can transfer your ticket. If it goes badly, at least you’ll be surrounded by your family, and if it goes well—hell, you can bring her along.”
Suddenly, Niko couldn’t move fast enough.
He hugged his mother briefly, frantically, mumbling how much he loved her, before grabbing his carry-on and exiting the airport as quickly as he could.
He hailed a cab back to the house and got directly into his truck, grateful he didn’t have to waste time packing.
The drive to Crested Peak was almost thirteen hours, and he considered doing it straight through, but it was already late afternoon when he got on the road, and it probably wasn’t the move to show up on Merritt’s doorstep at three a.m. So when he felt his eyelids drooping, he pulled over at the first motel he could find, and the next morning, he was back on the road within ten minutes of opening them again.
Merritt’s car was in the driveway when he pulled up to her house, and he half expected her to come out to meet him at the door. He had no idea how she’d react to seeing him. Annoyance? Relief? Anger?
Nerves began to overtake him as he sat there. Maybe it had been a mistake to drive all the way here without calling her first. But the time to make that call had been about eight hundred miles ago, so he got out of his truck and walked to her doorstep on shaking legs.
He knocked firmly, then waited.
And waited.
He knocked again.
After a few minutes, he took out his phone and called her, pushing aside the voice telling him that she was probably ignoring him after seeing his truck. She picked up right away, though.
“Hi,” she said, and just hearing her voice made Niko’s stomach do a full American Ninja Warrior obstacle course.
“Hi,” he said, swallowing. “Are you home?”
She was silent for a moment. “Why?”
“Because, um. I’m outside.”
She didn’t say anything for so long that Niko’s heart felt like it was going to beat a hole through his chest. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she finally replied.
Niko opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He had to fight to get air into his lungs. In the background, he heard honking, the hum of traffic. Noises that definitely didn’t sound like Crested Peak. “Where are you?”
“I’m in fucking Athens,” she said before breaking into hysterical laughter. Niko started laughing, too, his hand coming involuntarily to his forehead.
“What?” he breathed, unable to wrap his mind around what she was saying.
“I just landed, I’m on my way to my hotel right now. I thought you were supposed to be here. I was coming to beg you to take me back.”
After twenty-four hours during which it felt like his brain was short-circuiting nonstop, hearing her say that was a hard reset, everything clicking back into place.
“Well, that’s convenient, because I was coming to beg you to take me back.”
“I can think of a way it could be more convenient,” Merritt said, fighting to hold back her laughter.
“Wait,” he said. “You got on a plane? For fifteen hours? For me?”
“Dead sober, too. That’s how you know it’s really love.” She let out an annoyed exhale. “Shit. I wanted to tell you in a more romantic way than that.”
“I don’t know if there is a more romantic way than that,” he said. “But I love you, too. I love you enough to not get on a plane.”
He stood there on her stoop grinning like an idiot, and even though she was quiet, he felt like he could hear her smiling through the phone, too.
“I wanted to have this conversation in person, at least.” The pang in her voice reminded him why he’d been spurred into action in the first place.
No point in beating around the bush. “Are you…are you pregnant?”
She was silent. Then, he heard her mutter something under her breath that sounded like “Goddammit, Diedre.” Into the phone she said, “No, I’m not. Is that why you came back?” His stomach clenched, but he couldn’t untangle whether it was from disappointment or the nervous edge to her tone.
“No,” he said. “I came back because I was done pretending I could live without you.”
Her voice softened. “But what about your family?”
“I can still visit.”
“I meant…what about the one you want?”
“I want you to be my family, Merritt,” he said, and he wondered if she could hear the pounding of his heart over the phone.
“Whatever that looks like. Whether it’s just the two of us, or more than that one day.
” He’d walked away from her front door now, staring out at the heart-achingly familiar view of the town, dizzy with gratitude to see it again.
“But it’ll never just be the two of us, here. ”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice cracking. “I want that, too.”
“I’m going to come back and get an apartment. I don’t care if it’s not as nice as my old place. I’ll figure something out.”
“No, you won’t. You’re going to move in with me.”
His heart surged, then sank. “Are you sure? Moving into your house because I don’t have anywhere else to go…I don’t want to be a freeloader.”
She laughed under her breath. “Well, I would hope it’s not just because you have nowhere else to go. But it’s your house, too, Niko. Every inch of it.”
He felt himself getting choked up again and cleared his throat. “And you’re not worried someday you’ll want…someone on your level?”
She took a sharp, shaky inhale, and he almost regretted saying it out loud. But he had to. It would eat him up inside if he didn’t.
“You’re right,” she said, her voice strained. “You’re not on my level. You’re so, so much better than me, in so many ways. I’m sorry for not telling you that when I should’ve.”
“Merritt—”
“I’m not saying that to put myself down,” she said quickly, interrupting his interruption.
“I’m saying it because you’ve ruined me for anyone else.
You inspire me so much—your kindness, and your curiosity, and your generosity, and your creativity.
Being with you was the first relationship where I didn’t feel like I got lost. It was like…
you gave me the space to find the best version of myself.
You showed me that love doesn’t have to be chaos.
It can be calm, and safe, and steady. And you showed me that I could be those things for you, too.
I’ve been dating for twenty years. I’ve been married.
I know what else is out there for me, and I don’t want any of them.
I want you, for as long as you’ll have me. ”
He really was crying now, fighting to keep it out of his voice as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Okay. How does forever sound?”
She let out a choked laugh. “Sounds like a fair estimate, for a job this size. But we’ll have to wait to shake on it.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to keep his breathing steady. “Okay. Okay. Sorry. I think you’ve turned me into an overthinker.”
“How does it feel?”
“Hurts.”
She laughed again, looser this time. “Yeah, it does. So, should I have them turn around and bring me back to the airport?”
“No, stay where you are. I’ll see if I can still use my ticket. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice warm and raspy. “Don’t make me wait too long.”