36. Josh
Chapter thirty-six
Josh
“Elevator?” Liv asks.
I look at the closed doors before I look at her.
Her mouth is already trying not to smile.
“Stairs,” I say. “Saturday. Blue sky. No reason to tempt fate.”
I pull her in by the hand, close enough to kiss her.
“Getting stuck in an elevator with you was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Her face softens.
She points toward the stairwell. “Still taking the stairs.”
I kiss her once. “Absolutely.”
She laughs, and I reach for her hand and her fingers slide between mine.
Her hand in mine still stops me for one second. Liv in jeans and a soft white sweater, sunglasses pushed up in her hair.
Liv takes the first flight like she has a meeting with the sidewalk. Seven years ago, I used to think she was late for something. Now I know better.
Liv moves fast because her mind is already three corners ahead of her feet.
I open the building door with my free hand, and sunlight hits us hard enough to make Liv lower her sunglasses over her eyes.
“Which way?” I ask.
“West.”
“Good choice.”
She looks up at me. “Was it now?”
“Sure. We can walk past the pond.”
Her eyebrows pull together.
“The women who feed the birds,” I say. “The ones who said we made a cute couple.”
Liv’s mouth curves. “They were very invested.”
“They had excellent instincts.”
We keep walking, and now I am thinking about the pond, and the bench beside it, and the two women who looked at Liv holding Iris like the answer had been obvious before either of us was brave enough to say it.
If they are there today, I am going to kiss her in front of them.
Not a polite kiss.
Not a sidewalk peck.
Enough to make her grab my shoulder and say my name in that sharp voice she uses when I have done something outrageous and she likes it more than she wants to admit.
Liv slows beside me.
“What is that smile?”
Earth to Josh. I glance at her.
“What smile?”
“That one.”
“Am I smiling?”
“Nothing,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “Josh.”
I let my thumb move once over her knuckles.
“You’ll see.”
Her hand stays in mine and we keep walking.
I know the plan is good.
Still, every time she smiles at me, I want to improve it.
She points across the street with our joined hands. “That bodega has the best empanadas if you go before noon.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“They run out of beef first.”
“Noted.”
Her shoulder bumps mine.
I am staring at her mouth when her phone rings.
She stops, pulls her phone from her pocket, and looks at the screen.
Her mouth flattens.
“Interns?” I ask.
“Interns.”
“Project?”
“Project.”
“Freaking out?”
“Likely.”
I lean in.
She lifts her face, and I kiss her quickly. Long enough to make her fingers tighten around mine.
“Take your time,” I say.
Her smile flashes. “Sorry.”
“Go save the project.”
“Slow down.”
She steps out of the flow of people, closer to a closed storefront with a blue awning. I move with her, then stop near the brick. Close enough for her to know where I am. Far enough to leave her room.
And watch her.
Liv on the phone is something to watch. There should be textbooks.
She stands still for the first ten seconds while she listens.
Her face gives away nothing except attention.
Her weight shifts and one hand pushes her sunglasses back into her hair.
The phone stays at her ear while her free hand lifts, palm out, like the interns can see the universal signal for stop making this worse.
“No,” she says. “Do not send that version.”
She starts pacing.
Three steps one way.
Pivot.
Three steps back.
I put one shoulder against the brick and let myself have the full view.
“Because the partner does not need a twelve-page history of how we got here. The partner needs the answer, the risk, and the recommendation.”
Her free hand moves as she talks. Sharp little cuts through the air. One finger for the first point. Two for the second. Three for the issue no one on the call has seen yet.
“No, I’m not mad,” she says, in a tone built to make people sit up straighter. “I’m telling you this before someone who is mad tells you the same thing.”
I smile before I can stop myself.
She turns at the end of her three steps and catches me.
For one second, her lawyer face breaks.
Just enough.
When she points at me, I put both hands up in surrender. She narrows her eyes and goes back to the interns.
“Cut the first section by half. Keep the citation. Lose the throat-clearing. If you have to defend why the sentence exists, the sentence goes.”
I have seen Liv in evening dresses.
I have seen her half-asleep on my couch.
I have seen her with Iris tucked against her chest.
I have seen her barefoot in my doorway with coffee in one hand and my shirt in the other.
And now there is this too. Liv in sunlight, saving a memo, saving some intern, and somehow adding one more thing to the list I already thought could not get longer.
“Okay. Listen to me. Nobody is dead. Nobody is losing their internship.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
She keeps pacing.
“Send it to me in ten. I’ll look at it on Monday before you circulate it. OK?”
She pauses.
“Breathe first. Then cut.”
Another pause.
“Good.”
She hangs up and walks back to me.
“You saved them?”
“From themselves, yes.”
She slides her phone back into her pocket, and I catch her hand again.
For one second, I do not start walking.
She looks at me over the top of her sunglasses. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Josh.”
I pull her in for a hug and kiss her temple.
“Your interns are lucky,” I say.
“They would disagree.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Frequently.”
We keep walking.
The city is loud with Saturday noise, brakes and dogs and strollers and someone laughing too hard outside the coffee cart. Liv orders an iced coffee, checks the lid before taking her first sip, and gives one small nod.
“Acceptable.”
“High praise. I will remember the location of this cart.”
She looks sideways at me.
“I retain important details.”
“Do you?”
I think of the dress.
The sweater.
The mango snacks.
The thin-handled mug.
The green-label oat milk.
The Barcelona itinerary she thought no one had noticed.
“I try,” I say.
Her mouth curves around the straw.
We turn onto a quieter block, one with trees in square cutouts and a row of brownstones with polished railings. Liv slows near a yellow door with two planters on the steps. She pretends she is not soft about window boxes and old stone and yellow doors.
She is.
I know because she looks at them for one second too long.
I look at her the same way.
“Do you have plans for the long weekend?” I ask.
Her head comes around.
There it is.
The spark.
“Plans?”
“Yes.”
“For the three-day weekend?”
“Yes.”
“With you?”
“Preferably.”
She takes a sip of coffee. Too calm. “I may have considered a few options.”
“A few.”
“Several.”
“Of course.”
I let her mentally build the weekend.
I let her because I love watching her plan.
Also because she is wrong about every single part of it.
“If you are actually off, Saturday morning could be the farmers market. The good peach stand sells out early because people see ripe fruit in public and forget every social contract.”
Check
I smile. “Reasonable.”
“Then there’s the new place on Columbus. The one with the ridiculous waitlist.”
Lunch, check
“How ridiculous?” I play along.
“Three weeks.”
“And yet?”
Her chin lifts. “I know someone.”
She keeps going like she has been waiting all week for permission to open the file in her head.
“Or we could do the museum first, because if we go later, we will hit tourists and children with melted snacks. Then lunch. Then maybe the bookstore by the park. You liked that one.”
I do like that bookstore, because Liv gets lost in the shelves, and I can look at her as long as I want before she catches me.
“I do.”
I am smiling now. I cannot help myself.
She has her free hand up, fingers moving as she builds the weekend in the air between us. Market. Restaurant. Museum. Bookstore. Lunch. Maybe a walk. Maybe my couch. Maybe hers.
I let her continue to plan our weekend because I love the way she does this. I love the speed of her. The certainty. The way she can turn three empty days into a map before most people find their keys.
I love her.
The thought is not new.
The amount of her I keep finding to love is.
“And Monday,” she says, “could stay open in case you get called in, because I am capable of being realistic.”
“Liv.”
“What?”
“That weekend is mine to plan.”
She stops walking.
I make it three more steps before her hand tugs me back.
“Yours,” she says.
“Yes.”
“To plan.”
“Yes.”
Her sunglasses are still in her hair. Her eyes narrow in the dangerous way she gets when she is delighted and deciding whether to admit it.
“Bold.”
“I thought so.”
“You understand I have standards.”
“I have met you.”
Her mouth opens a little.
“Joshua.”
Her eyes search my face, and I can see the exact second she realizes I am enjoying this.
“You are enjoying this,” she says.
“A little.”
She shakes her head, but she is smiling now.
Fully.
The kind of smile that starts before she can stop it and takes over anyway.
There is the smile I wanted.
I take her coffee from her hand and set both cups on the low stone wall beside us.
“What are you doing?”
“Freeing your hands.”
“For what?”
“For the appropriate reaction.”
Her eyebrows lift. “To what?”
“I booked flights.”