Chapter Thirty-One
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
NATALIE
W e pulled into a grocery store back in town. Joel said he was going to make us dinner, and I told him I had breakfast covered. We walked in and split up. I grabbed ingredients for crepes and chose some specialty cheeses and sliced bacon from the deli. He met me at the checkout after I was done and tried peeking in my bags, but I swished him away.
Once at his apartment’s parking lot, he carried my suitcase and beach bag, while I carried the groceries. I loved doing this again, and even though there was a song in the back of my head suggesting how the evening could potentially go, I knew Joel would stay true to his word and nothing would happen. There was also the nagging voice in the far depths of my mind reminding me we were skirting around topics that needed to be brought to the table.
Joel let me walk into his place first, and I carried the bags to the kitchen, emptying their contents into his fridge. He put my suitcase by the closet near the entry and told me to go shower while he cooked. I obliged, grabbed what I needed from my bag, and went into the bathroom.
Like everything else about his place, the stall shower was small, but the warm water felt amazing. I lathered my hair and just stood there, letting work, the plane, and my day wash down the drain. The steamed up glass tipped me off that I’d overstayed my welcome. Grabbing an extra towel from a shelf over his toilet, I dried off, and as I dressed in a large Weezer concert t-shirt and cotton pajama bottom capris, I noticed a small print out taped to the wall by his vanity mirror. Leaning closer, I noticed it was a flier for the Portland Marathon a few months away. Grinning, I towel dried my hair, then heard a crash of pans coming from the kitchen.
I walked out to find Joel holding a mixing bowl in one hand and battling a sizzling frying pan with the other as he hunched down to look at a recipe off his iPad. “Can I help with anything?”
He looked up and gave a defeated smile. “It turns out I’m not a great cook.”
“Oh, we found your Achilles heel. That’s fun,” I bumped him with my hip. “Okay, what are we making?”
“This was Lottie’s favorite website, and she made all kinds of amazing things from it, so I thought I would start cooking for myself again. The meatballs looked good. Except, I burned the first batch.” He pointed to the balcony where they were still smoking on a cookie sheet.
“I’ve got this.” I turned the stove down and shaped the remaining meatballs while he took a quick shower. When he was clean, he came into the kitchen in basketball shorts and a t-shirt from his kayaking gig. Quickly, he made a small pot of rice and headed up sauce. I prepped a simple green salad. We worked in tandem to finish the meal, and before we sat down, Joel fished a single candle and book of matches out of the back of the hallway closet.
He told me to sit as he placed the candle in the middle of the table and lit it, set down dishes in our spots, and declared dinner was served. I portioned myself a plate and passed it under my nose, taking a whiff .
“Smells good. I don’t even remember the last time somebody mostly cooked for me.”
“Dane never did?” He asked.
I pursed my lips and thought about it. “No. Well, rarely. He is more of a go out to eat kind of guy. And between his job and my job, we had a lot of evening events to go to, anyway.”
“Well, it may not have gone exactly how I wanted it to, but I’ll keep trying, and next time you won’t have to help,” he promised.
“Deal,” I said. “Thanks for the shower. I feel a lot better.”
“You look different,” he said, catching me off guard. “I haven’t been able to peg it all day, but something is different.”
“Why does everybody keep telling me this?” I grinned. “Different bad?”
“No. Not at all. And in all fairness, you said I look different too.”
I took a drink of water and changed the subject. “So what’s with the flier in the bathroom? I’m pretty sure it said ‘Portland Marathon.’”
“Oh.” He looked sheepish. “When Lottie died, I got really into running. I had played rugby in high school, and then after college, I took up rock climbing. But when I had to channel my grief into something, I chose running. It was easy. I could do it alone, I didn’t have to go somewhere to do it like with rock climbing. In fact, I ran the Honolulu Marathon that first year I moved here. Cried most of the route—kind of awkward—and then I ran it again the last two years. I don’t know, I thought this year maybe I’d go to Portland and try a new one.” He paused. “I’ve never been there before. I was hoping we could hang out while I’m there, and you could show me around.”
When I didn’t immediately agree, he put down his fork and tried to backtrack. “You don’t have to play hostess the whole time?—”
I put my hands in my lap and took a deep breath. “I would love to have you come to Portland. But I’m not going to be there in October.”
His face dropped. “Oh, is work sending you somewhere?”
My lips turned up, and I chuckled. “Um, no. I’ll be living here. Not here, like in your apartment, but here. On the island.”
“That’s what’s different,” he said, pointing to me. “You have a secret.” Did he have a twinkle in his eye or was that an accusation?
“That’s actually why I’m back. I had a few meetings this morning before I found you.” I hoped the optimism in my voice carried and Joel would be happy with my news.
“Okay, so we’re doing this now, huh?” He pushed his plate back and took a drink.
“Doing what?” I needed to hear it straight from him.
“You know what,” he began. “Red, you left.”
“I—”
“Please.” He put his hand up and gave me a half smile. “Let me go first.”
I pretended to zip my lips.
He took a deep breath and let it out before starting again. “I get it. You came here on vacation. You weren’t looking for anything—come to find out—because you had just gotten out of a really big relationship. But here’s the thing, I was totally taken by you from the minute you stepped on my beach. I haven’t felt this way about anybody since I met my wife. Haven’t even wanted to. It blindsided me, and I told myself I was asking for trouble if I got attached, but it happened.
“The night of Lea and Ben’s wedding, I was sure I loved you. I don’t know, maybe it was the magic of the evening.” He paused and nervously moved his fork around his plate. I sat patiently and took in what he had told me so far. It was so completely honest. And vulnerable. And selfishly, everything I had ever hoped to hear from him. “Then you told me why you were here, and we had that moment of ‘miscommunication’ as I like to call it.” He smirked, momentarily lost in thought .
I reached across the table to take his hand, and when I tried to apologize, he shook his head.
“My turn, still. Please.”
With my free hand, I zipped my lips again and gave him a nod.
“While I knew you were leaving, I thought we had a few more days. But you blindsided me and went home. I get it. I support that you have an important job and you were needed. Nothing was keeping you here. I just wished you had given me the respect of recognizing that my feelings for you were stronger than your feelings for me. When you kept reaching out over the last two weeks, to me it felt like it was out of guilt. It . . . it shattered me each time I saw your name come across my phone.
“And now you’re here, and I want to pick up where we left off, but I can’t be in a relationship that always has an expiration date on it. Although, in all fairness, you did tell me a minute ago, you’re moving here?”
I blinked a few times as he finished his confession, containing my glee. “You maybe loved me?”
He creased his brow. “What happened the last two weeks?”
I blew out a deep breath. “A lot. How much time do you have?”
“All night,” he promised.
We finished dinner while I started at the beginning: getting back to Portland and becoming a very sad case of pathetic with the moping around to sad music and eating my feelings. We did dishes together as I told him about the first week back at work and all the preparations that took place. We crammed into the bathroom and brushed teeth while I filled him in on the excitement of picking my big fundraiser outfit.
“I wish I could’ve seen you,” he told me, spitting his toothpaste into the sink.
I did, too. Walking back into the kitchen, I picked up my phone and scrolled social media to find the tagged photo from the company photographer with Kate and I in front of the river. When I showed it to Joel, his face lit up like it did the night of the wedding seeing me in the fuchsia dress.
“There’s that high-maintenance woman I like so much,” he teased, and kissed me on the forehead.
We moved to the bed, where I settled in sitting cross-legged. He sat with his back against the headboard and put his arms behind his head as I took him through the day of the team building kayaking adventure, my anxiety at sending him the photo, all the way up to the run through the night before the event.
“I was going around meeting everybody and sampling all the food trucks and the owners just looked so happy. I told you when I was here that I hoped to find myself in Hawaii. Maybe I’m completely insane, but Joel . . . I bought a food truck.” I could hardly look at him as I said it.
“I love this. You bought a food truck.” He beamed. “I don’t know if you know this, but I love eating at them.”
“You don’t say?” I laughed. “Anyway, after talking to June about her crepe truck, I realized this was something I could do. And want to do. So I sat down with her that night and asked her a million questions. She’s going to teach me how to run the truck—the actual cooking side of things and also the business side. After we spoke, I stayed up all night building a business plan, searching for a food truck to buy on the island, finding a place to live, buying the last seat available out of Portland the next night—I mean, last night.
“Did you know Portland to Vegas to Honolulu is a popular and somewhat rowdy route? I do now. I got in this morning at five.” And with that I yawned, as if on cue.
Joel laid down on his pillow and patted the spot next to him, tucking me under his shoulder. “So then what were those errands you ran this morning? Did they have to do with your new life?”
I smiled, closing my eyes. “Mmmm. I found a nice couple who want to quasi-retire. I bought their food truck and they’re partial investors in my new business, along with doing some consultation work as needed. They’ve owned trucks all over, but having one here was their last venture. Then I met my new professor roommate, Maggie.”
With his free hand, he reached over and played with my hair, lulling me into slumber faster. I took a deep breath and was almost out as he kissed the top of my head, and I heard him whisper, “Full disclosure, I don’t ‘maybe’ love you. I love you. Hard.”