Chapter Twenty-Two
Autumn
Summer opens the door before I knock.
She stares at me, then presses one hand over her mouth.
"You're actually here."
I drop my bag beside my feet. "That's a weird greeting."
"Come here before I cry."
"You're already crying."
"Then move faster."
I barely get my coat open before she pulls me into her. The last few months have been phone calls, voice notes and Summer's face flattened into whatever screen I happened to be holding. Having her arms around me again is different enough that my throat closes before I'm prepared for it.
She squeezes harder. "I missed you."
"I missed you too."
Her breath catches against my hair.
"Babe, if you get mascara on me, we're fighting."
"I'm not wearing mascara."
"Bitch."
Summer laughs and finally lets me go, wiping under one eye with the side of her finger. Her other hand settles automatically against her stomach, which is significantly more impressive in person.
She catches me looking. "Careful."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were considering it."
"I was admiring the engineering."
I hook my bag over my shoulder and follow her inside. Three large boxes are lined against the entry wall, each one labeled in Colt's handwriting with enough detail to suggest they've entered a federal evidence room.
Summer points before I can ask. "Don't encourage him."
One box says CHARLESTON: CAR / FIRST NIGHT / DO NOT PACK.
I look at her. "There are subcategories."
"There are subcategories inside the subcategories."
From deeper in the house, Colt calls, "Because we need things when we get there."
Summer closes her eyes.
I raise my voice. "I respect your process, Colt."
"Thank you."
"You're dead to me," Summer mutters as she takes my bag.
I'm still laughing when Colt appears from the kitchen. He hugs me with one arm, careful of the drink in his other hand, then steps back to look at me.
"Good to have you home."
The word catches somewhere I'm not interested in examining while half the guest list is arriving behind me.
"Good to be here."
That part, at least, is easy.
The house fills quickly after that. Marisol gets halfway through asking about London before Lucia comes running around her and wraps both arms around my waist.
"You missed my birthday."
"I know, sweetie. I'm sorry."
"I lost two teeth."
"That does change things."
Lucia pulls back and points toward her own face. "And I got taller."
"How much?"
"A lot."
She drags me toward the living room before I can argue.
Bex arrives ten minutes later carrying a box large enough that Dom stops helping Colt with the food and just watches her maneuver it through the doorway.
"What is that?"
"A gift."
"For the baby?"
Bex adjusts the box against her hip. "That's usually how baby showers work."
Dom takes one end before she drops it. "I'm asking because of the size."
"You're being nosy."
"I'm trying to protect the house."
Summer, from the couch, points at Bex. "If it makes noise, you're taking it home."
Bex looks offended. "You think I'd buy your child something obnoxious?"
Every person in the room looks at her.
That carries us through another wave of arrivals, food and people asking me the same handful of questions about London. I've just finished explaining for the fourth time that no, I have not developed an accent, when I hear Sam laugh.
My body recognizes it before my brain catches up. I turn.
He's near the dining table with Colt and Dom, one hand around a bottle of water, his weight settled against the back of a chair.
His hair is a little longer than when I left, enough that the curls on top have stopped doing what he wants them to do.
He's grown a beard too. Not much, but enough to roughen a face I know well enough that the difference catches immediately.
The bottle pauses halfway to his mouth when he sees me.
For a few seconds, neither of us pays much attention to whatever is happening around us.
Then Sam lowers the bottle and gives me a small lift of his chin.
I return it.
He stays where he is.
There's relief in that. Disappointment too, which is irritating enough that I refuse to sort through it while Lucia is tugging on my hand and demanding a ruling on whether two missing front teeth qualify as a major life event.
They do.
Bex bought the baby a lamp.
At least that's what she claims.
Colt lifts it out of the box and turns it slowly in both hands. Chrome curves up from the base beneath a spray of colored glass that looks less like nursery lighting and more like something stolen from an aggressively fashionable hotel lobby.
Summer leans forward from the couch. "Plug it in."
Colt looks at her. "You haven't seen what it does."
"That's why I said plug it in."
Bex is already on the floor looking for an outlet. "Thank you."
Lucia drops beside her to help, and thirty seconds later the wall behind Summer is covered in pink, blue and amber light.
Summer gasps.
Colt studies the wall with the expression of a man trying to remain supportive through a zoning violation.
"I love it," Summer says.
Bex gets to her feet and dusts off her knees. "Nobody at the bar thought I should buy it."
"Where are we putting it?" Colt asks.
"In the nursery."
He looks at the lamp, then at his wife. "Where in the nursery?"
Summer squints at him. "Somewhere you can see it."
"That did not narrow anything down."
"It's a lamp, Colt. We'll survive."
I'm still smiling when Marisol takes the empty chair beside me. She has been waiting for a gap in the noise, and the second she sits, I can tell she has something.
"I start fittings next week."
I turn fully toward her. "You got the Chicago production?"
Her grin breaks wide enough to answer me.
"Marisol." I'm out of my chair before she finishes nodding. She laughs when I wrap my arms around her, and I feel her hand pat twice between my shoulder blades.
When we separate, she catches my forearms. "Before you start, yes, I earned it."
"You did."
"And you still helped."
"I sent an email."
"To the right person."
"You still had to walk through the door."
Her smile softens. "You can let me thank you without turning it into an argument."
I laugh and squeeze her arm before Lucia calls from the other side of the room that her mother is urgently required for something involving ribbon.
Marisol gets up, and I glance toward the dining table without thinking about it.
Sam is already looking at me.
This time there isn't a conversation holding him in place.
He says something quietly to Dom, sets his water on the table and starts across the room.
My pulse finds a new speed.
Months ago, at the fundraiser, there were empty seats between us. I waited for him to cross that space because I needed to know whether he would do it without me making the first move.
Sam comes around the coffee table and stops beside the couch.
"Hey."
"Hey."
His hands are empty. One settles briefly against his thigh before he gestures toward the open place beside me.
"Can I sit?"
I move my bag off the cushion. "Yeah."
He sits close enough that I catch the familiar clean scent of his soap underneath everything coming from the kitchen.
For a minute neither of us attempts a conversation.
Summer is opening another gift, Lucia is collecting discarded bows, and Colt is trying to write something down while Bex keeps moving the pen out of his reach.
Sam laughs when Summer threatens both of them.
The sound is quieter beside me.
Someone calls from the kitchen asking about napkins. Sam's head turns immediately, and his palm presses against his knee as if his body has already decided he should stand.
"Pantry, second shelf," Colt calls without looking up from the gift list.
Sam stays seated.
His fingers loosen against his leg.
I turn my attention back to Summer before he catches me watching.
A few minutes later Colt squeezes around the coffee table, and Sam shifts just enough that his knee presses against mine.
Neither of us corrects it.
Summer pulls a tiny pair of lemon-covered pajamas from a gift bag and holds them up with both hands.
Her mouth falls open. "This can't be right."
Colt leans over her shoulder. "What?"
"This is too small."
"That's newborn size."
"No human being can be this size."
Lucia cranes her neck to see. "I was."
Summer looks at Marisol. "Was she?"
"Close."
"That's horrifying."
Colt kisses her temple while Lucia takes the pajamas and holds them against Summer's stomach to demonstrate that yes, an entire human being will eventually fit inside them.
The room turns soft around her without losing its noise.
Sam's knee is still against mine.
Summer appears beside me later carrying a plate of cake like she's transporting something confidential.
She lowers herself onto the couch and immediately points her fork at me. "If Colt asks, this is my first piece."
There is blue icing on the front of her shirt.
I look at it, then at her.
"Don't."
"You have evidence."
She glances down and swipes at the icing with one finger. "Destroy it."
"I'm not aiding a criminal."
"You're my best friend."
"Exactly. I have standards."
She licks the icing from her finger, then shifts the plate protectively when I reach toward it.
"That's interesting."
"What?"
"You need help hiding the cake but I can't have any."
"You have access to the kitchen."
"I want yours."
"That sounds personal."
I steal a corner of frosting before she can stop me.
Summer pulls the plate against her chest. "You're unbelievable."
"You left an opening."
"I am carrying your goddaughter."
I laugh and settle back into the couch while she resumes eating.
I've missed them. Not the city. Not the weather. Not any of the things people mean when they ask whether Chicago feels like home.
These people. Summer's shoulder rests against mine, and I let my head tip against hers.
"I'm going to miss you."
Her fork stops halfway to her mouth.
I feel the old reflex immediately, the urge to tack on something that makes the sentence less exposed.
Summer sets the plate on the coffee table instead.
"I'm going to miss you too."
Her hand finds mine between us.
"Charleston isn't forever, London isn't forever," she says.
"I still get to miss you."
"Yes, you do."
"And I'll be back before the baby."
"You better."
I turn my hand beneath hers and lace our fingers together. "Try keeping me away."
That earns a small smile.
"Good."
Summer picks her cake back up with her free hand and takes another bite without letting go of me.
Neither of us needs to fix the moment after that.
People start leaving in waves.
Every goodbye creates another ten-minute conversation near the front door, so the house empties slowly. Containers migrate into people's hands. Gifts get shifted toward the stairs.
I find my coat underneath two others on the chair near the entryway.
Sam is across the hall helping Dom move a box out of the path to the door. He sets it against the wall, says something to him, then looks over and sees me pulling my coat free.
He waits until Dom walks away before coming closer.
"You heading out?"
"I'm trying. Summer keeps adding goodbye requirements."
His mouth curves. "Sounds right."
I slide one arm into my coat but stop before the other.
"I got the flowers."
Sam's attention settles completely on me. His hands stay loose at his sides.
"They made it?"
"They did. They were beautiful."
"I'm glad."
I pull the other sleeve on and smooth my hair out from beneath the collar. "I kept the card."
His jaw tightens.
No question about what I thought. No attempt to explain the third sentence or find out whether keeping the card means what he hopes it means.
The restraint leaves me with more room than I expected.
"You asked me to tell you when I was ready."
He goes very still.
I glance into the living room. Summer is sitting with one foot tucked beneath her while Colt collects tissue paper around her. This isn't where Sam and I should do any of this.
"Tomorrow," I say. "I can talk tomorrow."
His eyes come back to mine. "Can I see you in the morning?"
"I'm free at ten."
"I'll find somewhere quiet and text you."
"All right."
Sam nods, then takes half a step back instead of filling the space with anything else.
Summer calls my name from the couch.
I look over my shoulder. "I've been summoned."
"Go."
There's a trace of a smile in his voice.
I turn toward the living room, then look back once.
Sam hasn't moved closer.
"Tomorrow," I say again.
"Tomorrow."
I leave him in the hallway and go hug my best friend one more time.
The hotel is painfully quiet after Summer's house.
I shower, pull on an old T-shirt and get into bed while my body insists it's several hours later than the clock claims. The room is dark except for the lamp beside me, and I should be exhausted enough to sleep through anything.
Instead I start having tomorrow's conversation without Sam.
In one version, he apologizes and gets halfway to what he means before I help him the rest of the way.
In another, he chooses the wrong word and I replace it for him because I can see the better one sitting right there.
By the end of it I've given him three openings, two recoveries and at least one sentence he has never actually said.
I turn onto my side and stare at the phone on the nightstand.
The pattern is suddenly impossible to miss.
What I do when I'm nervous. Get there first. Make the difficult part easier. Figure out what everyone needs and hand it to them before they have to struggle for it.
Even him.
I reach over and turn the phone facedown without opening it.
Tomorrow, Sam gets to bring his own words. If he goes quiet, I can let the silence belong to him instead of rushing in to make it comfortable. If he says almost enough, I can listen without supplying the rest.
I don't need to make him fail.
I'm just done helping him pass.
The lamp goes off.
It takes a while, but eventually I stop rehearsing long enough to sleep.