37. Liv
Chapter thirty-seven
Liv
By the time Josh says flights, my brain has already opened six tabs.
Not on my phone.
In my head.
Departure times. Airport choice. Weather. Car service. Shoes. Whether a three-day weekend can survive one delayed plane out of Newark. Whether I should pack the blue dress or the black one. Whether I can make a list without looking like I am making a list.
Josh watches it all happen across my face.
“You can’t make lists without knowing where we’re going,” he says.
“What lists? I haven’t said anything.”
His mouth moves like he is trying not to smile.
He does not reach for his phone right away. That should warn me. Josh, with a plan, is calm in a way that makes me suspicious.
“San Juan,” he says.
My brain closes every tab.
"What?"
“You had the Gothic Quarter starred on your Barcelona itinerary,” he says. “Twice.”
“So I found the closest thing I could get to it in three days. Old walls, narrow streets. Plazas where we can get lost on purpose.”
My throat goes tight before I can stop it.
“You snooped through my vacation folder?”
“You left the folder on your counter.”
I try to glare at him. It comes out wrong.
“I did not leave it there for research purposes.”
“No,” he says. “You left it there because you were pretending not to care about the trip anymore.”
“Don’t get smug.”
“I earned a little smugness.”
He reaches for his phone and turns the screen toward me, like an offering he is still holding so I don’t have to take it before I am ready.
“The flight is on Friday evening.”
“Refundable,” he says before I can ask. “And I’m not stealing your weekend. I’m asking for it.”
On the screen is a yellow building with white trim and narrow iron balconies. Pots of red flowers hang over the railings. The street below is blue stone and soft light.
For the first time in my life, I understand what people mean when they say their heart cannot take much more.
“It’s a guest house in Old San Juan,” he says.
I look at the picture again. “It’s beautiful.”
“There are two rooms on the second floor.” His voice changes there. A little quieter. “Separate rooms. But the balconies connect.”
I look up.
“There’s a gate between them,” he says. “The owner said they can leave it open for us.”
I should say something normal.
I can’t.
I can see it. Two doors. Two rooms. A narrow shared balcony with old iron at the edge. Morning light. Coffee between us. The city still half-asleep.
No baby monitor.
No hospital alert.
No deposition prep.
No one needing either of us for one full cup.
Josh clears his throat. “I checked. There’s a bakery around the corner that opens early. I thought we could sit out there in the morning. Have coffee together.”
Of course, he made the part that mattered most sound like an afterthought.
I look down at his phone again because looking at him, even briefly, is too much for my heart.
“You had a note,” he says. “‘Coffee before the city wakes up.’”
“You read all my notes?”
“Yes.”
The photo blurs. I blink hard and make myself focus on the red flowers.
Josh shifts beside me.
Waiting.
That might be the part that gets me.
He has planned the whole thing, and still, he leaves me room to want it.
I hand him back the phone.
He takes it, but his eyes stay on me.
“Liv?”
I put both hands on his face. His breath catches once.
I want to kiss him.
Every part of me wants to.
My hands want to pull him down, my mouth wants his, and the rest of me wants to step straight into the weekend he just put in front of me.
Yellow walls.
Red flowers.
Coffee on a balcony before the city wakes up.
But if I kiss him too fast, I will miss this.
His face.
His eyes on mine.
He is asking for one weekend.
Not the whole future.
Just the first piece of it.
A part of me has always known he was the one and that we spent seven years thinking we had been too young, too tired, too careless with our one chance.
“I love you,” I say.
His smile starts small. But it does not stay small.
His hands come to my hips, warm through my sweater, and he leans in until his forehead touches mine.
“I never stopped loving you.” His thumbs move once at my waist.
“I loved you when I had you. I loved you when I lost you. I loved you every day I was supposed to be getting over you.”
The words go through me so cleanly I have to close my eyes.
“I know my schedule is still—”
For one second, I am twenty-seven again. Tired. Hurt. Proud.
“No.” I open my eyes.
“No pre-apology.”
His mouth twitches.
“I love you,” I say again. “I never stopped loving you.”
His face changes.
I feel his hands tighten at my hips.
“I tried,” I say.
His eyes search mine.
“I tried to stop. I did stop, in the ways a person can stop when she has a job and a calendar and a life with enough clean edges to hide inside.”
I look down at the front of his jacket because his face is too much, then make myself look back. “But every once in a while, I would hear you were dating someone.”
His jaw shifts.
“Liv.”
“No, I want to say this.”
He nods once.
I keep my hands on his face because I need him close for this.
“When I heard, I would think about how lucky she was. Whoever she was. Because of course someone would love you. You are kind, and steady, and ridiculous about snacks, and you remember things people do not even know they showed you.”
My thumbs move over his cheekbones. “And then I would be sad, because we had been good too. Before we got tired. Before I turned the hardest parts into the whole story.”
His eyes do not leave mine.
“I forgot how good the good parts were,” I say.
His hands settle more firmly at my waist.
“No,” I say, and smile because I know better. “That’s not true. I remember all the times.”
His mouth softens.
“You bringing me soup when I said I did not need soup. You falling asleep in your scrubs with a medical journal open on your chest. You walking into my cousin’s wedding late and looking at me like I was the only person in the room.”
His mouth softens.
“And then I would be mad at myself,” I say. “Because I had given up on a man who was the only person in the room for me.”
“You didn’t give up,” he says quietly.
“I did.”
“No.”
“Josh.”
“You were hurt.”
“I was hurt,” I say. “But I left.”
His face tightens, but he does not argue.
I love him more for it.
“And then you showed up with Iris,” I say.
His mouth curves before he can stop it. “In full Atomic Tomato mode.”
A laugh breaks out of me.
“Yes. In her favorite mode.”
“She did have range.”
I laugh again, and this time one tear gets loose before I can do anything about it.
His thumb comes up and wipes away the tear.
I do not move.
Josh’s thumb stays near my cheek.
“What did you think?” he asks.
“When?”
“When I showed up with Iris.”
I look at him.
“At first? I thought your cousin had terrible timing.”
“She did.”
“Then I thought Iris had impressive lung capacity.”
“Also true.”
“And then I thought—” My throat tightens again, so I grip the front of his jacket.
“Here is your second chance, Liv. Do not miss it because you planned a vacation just to prove you had a life.”
His eyes close for one second.
When he opens them, the smile is gone. His face is warm, and open, and so serious I can feel it in my hands.
“I am not going anywhere, Liv.”
My fingers tighten in his jacket.
“You hear me?” His thumbs move once at my waist. “I’m right here. I love you. I am so completely in love with you, Liv.”
“I hear you.”
“You sure?”
I nod. “I’m holding you by the jacket. There is no chance I’m letting you go.”
His smile comes back.
Small at first.
“So,” he says.
I narrow my eyes. “I know that face.”
“What face?”
“The face before you ruin a tender moment.”
He tips his head. “Hearing I was dating other women made you jealous.”
I stare at him.
His mouth is trying very hard to behave.
“Joshua.”
“I’m only clarifying the record.”
I take one hand off his face and smack his chest.
He laughs, and the sound goes through me, warm and familiar and mine in a way I am still learning how to hold.
“Jerk.”
“Lucky jerk.”
“Yes,” I say, and pull him down. “Very.”
I kiss him with both hands on his face and his hands at my waist, and I do not let go because I have already lost seven years of knowing what his mouth feels like when he is smiling against mine.
I kiss him long enough that someone has to step around us and I still do not move.
When I let him go, his eyes stay closed for half a second.
Good.
I did that.
“San Juan,” I say.
“San Juan.”
“Friday evening.”
“Yes.”
“Adjoining balconies.”
“With a gate.”
“Bakery around the corner.”
“Early coffee.”
I take his hand.
We start walking again, slower now, because neither of us seems to remember where we were going before he turned my entire weekend into a place with yellow walls and red flowers.
After half a block, he glances down at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Josh.”
“I was thinking about the bird ladies.”
“Why?”
His mouth curves.
“No reason.”
I look at him for one long second and tighten my hand around his.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He laughs, and we keep walking hand in hand.