24. Josh
Chapter twenty-four
Josh
The zipper stops me in the middle of rinsing a bottle.
My hand tightens around it, and for half a second the kitchen, the sink, the warm water, all of it falls away.
Same apartment.
Same suitcase.
Same sound.
Last time, I stayed where I was.
Liv had come over with that same Tumi, packed the things she kept here, and carried them back to her own place while I stood in the kitchen and let the water run. I did not ask her to stay. I did not ask if she wanted me to.
I set the bottle in the rack, dry my hands on a towel, and walk down the hall.
Liv is standing beside the bed with one hand still on the suitcase. Her head lifts when I stop in the doorway.
For one second, neither of us says anything.
Her face is calm, but her fingers are still wrapped around the zipper pull.
I could ask if she is leaving because of what happened in the kitchen. I could ask if, when she comes back, she is coming to this apartment first or to hers.
But twenty minutes ago, she told me the speed scared her. So I start with the question that will not corner her.
“Anything else you need before morning?”
Her fingers ease off the zipper pull.
Not all the way. Enough.
No.” Her attention drops to the suitcase before returning to me. “Maybe. I’m still checking.”
“Okay.”
I stay in the doorway.
She takes a breath and looks back at the suitcase. “I hate early flights.”
“You love early flights.”
“I love arriving early. I hate the part where I have to become a functioning person before five.”
“You function before five.”
“I perform tasks before five. That’s not the same thing.”
The corner of my mouth moves. “Noted.”
She gives me the look.
“Food?” I ask.
“I’ll find something at the airport.”
“That didn’t sound convincing.”
Her mouth almost smiles.
I go back to the kitchen and read the alert on my phone.
REYES: FOLLOW-UP INSPECTION.
Two weeks ago, those words would have owned the room. Now my apartment has clean counters, bottles drying in rows, and the printed schedule taped to the fridge in Liv’s color-coded system. The kind of system that seems excessive until it saves you at 2:17 in the morning.
Liv walks into the kitchen behind me, and I lose every calm thought I had lined up.
She sees the alert on my phone. “I’m sorry.”
I turn to her. “For what?”
“For not being here for it.”
I turn the phone facedown on the counter. “You have a deposition. You don’t have to apologize for doing your job.”
She crosses her arms, then uncrosses them. “I’m not apologizing for doing my job.”
No.
She is apologizing for the timing. For the suitcase. For the way Chicago showed up twenty minutes after she told me we were moving too fast.
“Iris and I will be fine,” I say.
Her eyes move over my face. “You sound like you mean that.”
“I do.”
“Two weeks ago, you almost put childproof locks on the top cabinets, even though Iris can’t even crawl yet.”
“I wanted to show I was forward thinking.”
That gets a better smile.
The smile fades, and she looks toward the fridge, at the printed system she built. “You have the schedule.”
“I have the schedule.”
Her eyes return to the fridge. The schedule is easier for both of us than the suitcase.
“Thank you for picking up the suit tomorrow,” she says.
“Of course.”
“You can just hang it in here.” Her eyes move to the guest room closet. “Or leave it on the chair. Wherever. It’s your apartment.”
My hand tightens once against the doorframe.
In here.
Then wherever.
She does not know she made it sound like she was coming back, then took it back in the same breath.
Liv glances toward the guest room. “I should finish packing.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us moves.
I hear Iris shift on the monitor from the living room, a soft rustle and one small sigh. Liv hears it too. Her face changes before she can stop it.
“She’s okay,” I say.
“I know.”
Liv does not move toward the monitor.
She looks at me.
For a second, I think she might say something about the kitchen, or the speed, or the fact that she is packing.
Instead, she turns back down the hall.
The rest of the evening moves in small, careful pieces. Iris takes a bottle. Liv checks the diaper caddy again. I order dinner neither of us eats enough of. By nine, the suitcase is zipped and set near the guest room wall.
Liv says good night with her hand on the guest room doorframe.
“Car at four-thirty?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be up.”
“You do not have to be up.”
“I know.”
Her eyes narrow. “Josh.”
“Iris may need something.”
“Iris will be asleep.”
“Then I’ll be quiet.”
She looks like she wants to object. “Fine.”
“Strong legal close.”
“Don’t make me cross-examine you before dawn.”
“I would not hold up.”
“No,” she says, and the softness in her voice almost takes my feet out from under me. “You wouldn’t.”
She steps into the guest room and closes the door.
I stand in the hall longer than I need to. Finally, I turn off the kitchen light and check Iris one more time.
She is asleep on her back, one fist near her cheek, giraffe tucked against the side of the crib like a witness. The monitor glows on the dresser.
I should sleep.
At four, I stop trying.
The bedroom is dark when I get up. I pull on pajama pants and a T-shirt, and stand there for a second, listening. Guest room quiet. Nursery quiet. City quiet, or as close as Manhattan gets.
In the kitchen, I open the pantry and take down the paper bag from the top shelf and set it on the counter.
Trail mix first. The kind with the dark chocolate pieces she pretends she does not pick out first, even though she absolutely does.
Dried mango with the green label. Not the orange one.
Sparkling water, the small bottle, because she hates opening a full bottle on a plane and then having to guard her laptop during turbulence.
I add a napkin because Liv would.
I open the junk drawer and find a square of paper from the notepad Liv used three days ago to label bottle times before she admitted the labels were mostly for me.
My hand knows what to write before I decide whether I should.
I want five more minutes.
Five words.
I stare at them in the low kitchen light.
It is the only ask I know how to make without standing in her way.
I fold the note once, a second time, and tuck it under the trail mix before I can change my mind.
The monitor stays quiet.
I do not know when she will find it. At the airport, maybe. In the hotel. Maybe not until she is looking for the mango and already tired enough to stop fighting herself for ten seconds.
The guest room door opens.
I am by the front door with the bag in my hand, and for one wild second I realize what she is seeing.
Bare feet.
Pajama pants.
Hair probably doing three separate things.
When Liv steps into the hall, every thought clears.
She is fully put together. Makeup. Earrings. Blazer. Work bag over one shoulder. The version of Liv who walks into a conference room and makes people sit straighter before she says a word.
Beautiful.
Sharp.
A little unreal at this hour.
Her suitcase rolls behind her.
She stops when she sees me.
“You’re awake.”
“I said I would be.”
She whispers. “How is she?”
“Asleep.”
“Was she up?”
“Once. Not all the way. She fussed, found her fist, made peace with the universe.”
“Bottle?”
“Not needed.”
“Diaper?”
“Also not needed.”
“Monitor?”
“On.”
“Schedule?”
“Still taped to the fridge.”
“Inspection folder?”
“By the door.”
She glances at the small stack on the console table. “You’re ready.”
“For Reyes.”
Her face shifts at the careful line.
I hold out the paper bag before either of us can stand inside that too long. “For the plane.”
She looks at it. “What is that?”
“Snacks.”
“For me?”
Her eyes lift to mine.
I shrug, which is kind of funny, because there is nothing casual about the way I have held on to this bag for ten minutes. “Trail mix. Mango. Sparkling water. Napkin.”
“The green-label mango?”
I try not to smile. “Obviously.”
She takes the bag slowly. For a second, the work face slips.
There she is. The Liv who used to stand barefoot in this kitchen and eat trail mix from the bag while telling me I bought the wrong kind of sparkling water with the kind of patience usually saved for toddlers and first-year residents.
The Liv who would have kissed me for knowing the green label without asking.
The Liv who is looking at me now like I have put something far more dangerous than snacks into her hand.
I have.
She looks down at the bag, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Her gaze catches on my hair. Her fingers brush through the piece of hair falling over my forehead and push it back before her palm comes to rest on my cheek.
Is the apartment always this quiet?
“You need a haircut,” she says.
My throat tightens around a laugh. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“It’s four-thirty in the morning. My best work starts at six.”
“Good to know.”
Her thumb moves once near my cheekbone.
It's.
Barely.
Enough.
“Thank you,” she says again, softer this time. “I’ll FaceTime tonight, okay?”
Okay is too small. It is also the only word I can trust myself with.
“Okay.”
She lowers her hand.
I miss it already.
The car alert lights up on her phone and reaches for the suitcase handle. I pick it up before she can.
“Josh.”
“I can roll my own bag.”
“I know.”
She lets me carry it to the elevator anyway.
We wait side by side while the numbers climb. Her paper bag is tucked against her briefcase, one hand around the handles. The note is inside.
The elevator dings.
She steps into the elevator and turns around. The paper bag hangs from her wrist.
The doors start to close.
I look at the bag, then at her.
She follows my gaze before the doors close between us.