Chapter 31 #2
“This is just how I process things now,” he continues.
“I read. I listen. I… teach—there’s this kid I’m mentoring.
I try to understand the world around me …
and myself. Help others do the same.” He inhales, putting the tickets in the breast pocket of his casual button-down.
“I’m not trying to fix you, Robyn.” His voice lowers, steadying.
“I just wanted to share what helps me make sense of things. In case it helps you too.”
It isn’t a speech. It isn’t polished. It’s him choosing care without control.
“Maybe it comes off as sudden to you,” I say slowly.
“But it isn’t.” I glance down at the table, then back at him.
“There’s a quiet in the lab. A logic to it you can actually measure with variables and control samples.
” I exhale. “After everything … that kind of failsafe is steadying. Especially when I think of patients like Mom.”
“I hate that your dad doesn’t see how fucking amazing of a doctor you are.” He taps on the acrylic surface, as if he wants to hold my hand but doesn’t dare. “I wish I could say I’ve never made you doubt yourself, because I’ve never doubted you.”
Reaching across the narrow table, I touch his hand. “Thank you for sharing this new part of you. It means a lot.”
We drift through the market for a while, tasting small bites: a cup of mac and cheese, cold crab and oysters, lemon on our fingers.
The smell of something sweet curls through the air, and he steers us toward a warm hand pie.
Later, he offers me the last bite of his fish taco for the flaky edge of the empanada I saved.
The shape of his mouth around it, lips pressing to the crust, makes me hungry.
I don’t bring up dessert—it’s not his thing—but he knows just the place.
Eating eclairs, staring at the Pacific, I don’t know what he hoped to get out of this trip, but I’m convinced we’re both satisfied.
We find our way back to the hotel room. In the quiet dark, I listen to Nate shower, then his steadying breaths from the other side of the bed.
Lying on my back, I stare at the ceiling until the urge to look at him wins, and roll onto my side to face him.
He’s at the edge of his mattress, one foot out of the quilt, shoulders relaxed beneath his gray T-shirt.
His body’s angled toward me, hand stretching yet finger curled, holding back.
The space between us hums with electricity.
When his breathing stutters and then steadies, I can tell he’s fighting the impulse to cross it—his want held just as carefully as my own.
Yep. We should’ve argued over that second room.
“Nate,” I whisper.
His eyes open immediately, dark in the low light. I can’t tell if they’re brown or that warm-cognac shade, but I know the look. Awake. Enthralled.
“You said you haven’t been with anyone since …”
“Since you. It’s not a curse word. I’m not embarrassed by it.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs, the mattress squeaking with his movement. “Because it’s my choice.”
“Present tense?”
“Yes.” He nods. “Present tense.”
I trace the seam of the sheet with my fingertip, gathering my nerves. “Was it—why did you—” I stop, frustrated with myself. The real question presses harder. “Do you not find me attractive anymore?”
He releases an incredulous laugh. “You rocked your hips into my dick about a month ago. You know exactly how attractive I find you.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “It looked … easy. For you not to—”
“Robyn, it’s been fifteen months, twenty days, and about thirteen hours since we were together.” His voice drops. “It was fucking hard.”
I smirk. “Pretty hard?”
“Really, really hard.” He shifts, brushing the bridge of my foot. I imagine he brushes against my thigh, and goosebumps break down my spine. “Not ripping off your clothes took heroic effort.”
“Heroic,” I echo.
“Don’t mock my celibacy.”
I prop my head on my arm. “So why?”
The pause stretches. “We already tried fucking rather than talking,” he mutters. “I didn’t want to do that again.”
“My hero,” I tease.
He lets out a self-deprecating huff. “Nothing like that, I was more like your zero.” He turns toward me, voice steadier now. “I want to show you I can be better than that.”
“Stand by me forever and kiss away the pain?” I murmur.
“You switched the lyrics.”
“I’m terrible with lyrics.”
“And I’m not joking. I’d go another fifteen months if that’s what it takes.”
I scoff. “You couldn’t stand weekends alone back then, now you’re okay with a never-ending one-hand affair?”
We stare at each other for a long silent beat until it cracks out in a burst of laughter. The mattress shakes with how hard we’re both laughing. When we finally quiet down, Nate’s got more to say.
“I didn’t like myself back then,” he admits. “I carried resentment over coming in second to your career and hated myself for it.” His gaze holds mine in the dark. “Now, I like myself, and I’d kill to be second to your career again.”
“You were never second. It’s a different kind of commitment.”
“I know.”
The silence tightens, intimate and sharp. And it’d be easy to keep it tightly hidden inside, but I don’t. “I’m afraid.”
He tightens his fist around the sheet. “That’s real.” He exhales. “This is going to sound real Freudian.”
“Just say it.”
“My mom never wanted a gopher. She wanted a partner. And I wanted to be the man my mom never had. That’s who I had, and who I was.” His voice roughens. “Until my own fear got in the way.”
I can bring the wreckage between us, and he’ll own his part. He’ll lay his mistakes, fears, and excuses bare for me.
“I also …” I say, wanting to do the same. “Should have told you or showed how you made my days lighter.”
“It doesn’t change what I did.”
“Nate.” I lick my lips. “When I gave you that yogurt at the grocery store, your smile took over your entire face. I should have noticed how long it’d been since you’d smiled like that.”
His gaze drops to my lips, but neither of us moves. I’ve been circling this version of Nate for the past few months, and he’s become more than an echo of someone I once knew and couldn’t place. He finally feels real.
I want to reach for him, touch him, and close the space his fear left between us.
My own fear is in the way now, this constant whir that I overlooked it before and could again.
We savor the restraint, subtly shifting from obligation into choice.
We can simmer in this new version of us. Possibilities can be choices too.