33. Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Now
When I open my eyes, it’s to a square of bright sunlight in the ceiling above my head. I blink as I come to, fragments of last night entering my mind: the Fourth of July. Hanging out with the Hoyts. The balcony, and of course, Theo—his hands, his mouth, the rumble of his voice between my thighs...
Look up at the stars when you come for me.
I look over at him now, passed out on top of the covers wearing only his boxers. He doesn’t have a gym body; he has the body of a man who works with his hands every day, and in the daylight, I can make out every ridge of his subtly defined muscles. As I watch, he makes an unintelligible noise and curls further into his pillow.
When we came in from the balcony last night, I had no intention of sleeping anytime soon. But Theo intercepted my hands as they reached for his zipper, kissed each palm, and directed me to sit on the bed.
“One more thing,” he said, grabbing a remote off the table. I frowned, a little put out that he stopped me to turn on the TV. But the remote didn’t go to the TV; instead, he pointed it at the ceiling above the bed. I watched as the set of wood slats I’d assumed was a large vent rolled away to reveal a skylight showcasing the same stars we’d just been looking at.
If the story behind the balcony had surprised me, this had me absolutely floored.
“You want to sleep under the stars?”
“Yes,” I said, a little breathless. We huddled together in the bed, still half-dressed, and for the first time, I counted real stars until I drifted off to sleep.
Now, instead of the endless stars, all I see is the harsh light of day. The return of reality. The truth is, I’m a disaster. Theo has his shit together. It's become increasingly clear that our feelings for each other are nowhere near resolved, and I’m beginning to feel guilty about the fact that while I was engaged to Daniel, Theo was busy carving out a place for me in his new life. Everywhere we’ve gone together, I’ve seen women making eyes at him, women who would have no qualms about moving inhere and sitting on that balcony and letting him take care of them. Women who don’t have anywhere near the baggage that I do.
I roll onto my side, wanting tolook at him. His mouth has fallen slightly open; I reach over and gently press beneath his chin. I don’t mean to wake him, but he stirs at my touch. “Nina?”
“Hey.” I scoot to his side of the bed as he opens his eyes, blinking rapidly as they adjust to the sun. “Morning.”
Theo yawns and grabs for his phone, checking the time. “Damn it. I should have already left.”
But he makes no move to get out of bed. He types out a quick text, and then he’s turning back toward me, propping himself up on an elbow to mirror me. We study each other for a long moment before he squeezes his eyes shut with a frustrated sigh. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“You know what. I can see the regret all over your face.”
He flops onto his back, letting his forearm fall over his forehead, and stares at the ceiling. His expression is hard, his jaw tight. I can see the pulse beatingat his throat. Disquieted, I sit up, adjusting my bra strap just to have something to do with my hands.
Nobody says anything for what feels like forever. I wish I could evaporate into the floor, through the balcony doors—anywhere to escape this tension. Briefly, I consider getting up and walking out of his bedroom; then I decide that would be a little too on-the-nose for my history, and I force myself to stay put.
Just as I open my mouth—to say what, I don’t have any fucking clue—Theo intones, “This is my fault.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Huh?”
He glares at the ceiling for another moment, then sits up abruptly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Perched on the edge of the mattress with his back to me, he speaks to the floor. “You kept telling me you didn’t want this, and I convinced myself you were starting to change your mind.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want --”
“Nina.” Theo’s fingers lace together behind his neck. “It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine, and the taut muscles across the expanse of his back make that clear. Crawling on my knees, I move over to kneel beside him. He doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t look at me, either.
“You know I’m trying to figure out what’s next for me,” I say finally. “I don’t want to drag you into it.”
That makes him lift his head, and he’s incredulous. He gestures broadly: at me, at the balcony, at himself. “What part of any of this makes you think I don’t want to be dragged into it?”
“You have so many options other than me,” I tell him. I can immediately tell that he doesn’t like that, but I press forward, desperate to make him see where I’m coming from. “You’ve built this amazing life--”
“I built it for us .”
“Except that I don’t even know how I fit into it.”
He must hear my doubt, my insecurity, because his expression softens. With that, he looks much more like my Theo.
I adjust so that I’m sitting on my butt, my legs dangling beside his. “I like working at the Wilsons’ for now, but I don’t have any idea what I want to do long-term. And I need to do something . I meant what I said, before. I’ve got to prove to myself that I can stand on my own two feet.”
He listens carefully, nodding along. “Alright,” he concedes. “I can understand that.”
“And, I mean...” I blow out a breath. “What do you want?”
“You.”
The word comes out quickly, a reflex. Even as my belly flutters, I roll my eyes, because I should have seen that coming. “Okay, but what else?” I think back to last night, when he was running around the yard with his cousins’ children, grinning and laughing alongside them. “Do you want kids?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I think so. Someday. But I’m not in a rush.”
“Well,” I say, both relieved and upset to discover this sticking point, “I’m not sure I do.”
“You’re not sure?” he asks, furrowing his brow at me. “Didn’t you and Daniel talk about it? Shouldn’t that have come up with someone you were about to marry?”
I really don’t want to discuss Daniel again; talking to him on the phone last night was more than enough. But it’s a fair question, so I answer. “He wanted them, and I told him I was okay with it.”
“And let me guess. He was going to keep working insane hours, and you were going to do everything by yourself.”
“We would have had a nanny to help.”
Theo snorts. “I don’t think Fran Fine is looking for a new job at this point.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m unable to completely hold back a laugh. I bump his shoulder with mine. “I’m just saying...now that I’m not marrying him, I can really think it through and decide if it’s what I want eventually, or if I was just going along with what he wanted.”
“So think it through. Take your time,” he says, still infuriatingly casual. “It’s not a dealbreaker.”
“Theo!” Exasperated, I jumpto my feet and stand in front of him. He leans back on his hands, letting his eyes do a slow scan down my body. His shirt from last night is on the floor next to us; I crouch down and grab it, then pull it over my head. “You’re being insane.”
“How?”
I prop my hands on my hips. “Because you’ve built your entire life around this hope that we’d see each other again. And now you’re willing to give up on the other things you want, just to be with me?” I shake my head. “You know what? You’re codependent, too. Not financially, but emotionally.”
His eyes flash, and for a moment, I think I’ve gone too far. He stands, putting us back on the same level. “Yeah, Iguess I am,” he snaps—not angry, exactly, but fierce. “I love you. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed and I don’t need to get over it. You can take it or leave it, but you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I have loved you for my entire life and I will love you for the rest of it.”
The room stills around us. My breath stalls in my throat. I gather the hem of his shirt in my hands, scrunch, release. All the while, he stands there and stares at me expectantly, not a trace of regret or apology in his expression.
“Theo,” I say, soft. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know that,” he argues. “Every day, people get married to someone they only met a couple of years earlier, and nobody questions it. I’ve had my entire life to think about how I feel about you, and I know. This is it.”
“But you haven’t known me your entire life,” I remind him. “We didn’t talk for ten years.”
Theo lifts his chin. “On that first day, at the country club,” he says, “did you feel like you were talking to a stranger?”
I look down at my feet, sunk into his plush carpet, and think back to that day. I was shocked, stunned, even a little scared to be confronted with the past so unexpectedly—but we were far from strangers.
He reaches toward me, hesitant. I don’t move, and he takes that as permission to grasp my arms. I wait for him to say something. Anything. When he doesn’t, I lift my eyes, and he squeezes. “You do what you need to do,” he tells me. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
“Why?” I demand. “ Why do you want to spend your life waiting around for me?”
Theo’s thumbs brush the base of my neck, and he gives me a small smile, tinged with something melancholy. “Because you’re worth the wait.”
Before I can argue, he pulls me into his arms. I hug him back, letting myself relax fully into him, and I think, I love you . The words floatinto my mind, a gentle acknowledgement.
I love you , I think again, purposefully this time, and it still feels like the most fundamental truth I’ve ever known.
I love you , I want so badly to tell him. But that would be cruel when I’m not even sure I can stay, when I’m not sure I should be letting him love me to his own detriment—so what comes out instead is, “I don’t deserve you.”
“That isn’t true.” His fingers slide through my hair, gently pulling at the tangles that formed as we slept. I close my eyes against his shoulder and let the sensation soothe me. “I know you weren’t brought up to believe this, but you deserve everything the world has to offer, Sass. Including a short guy with a big nose who’s gone for you.”
Even though he’s just proved my point—why is he reassuring me , when I’m the one making everything complicated? --I laugh. “I like your nose. And you’re not that short.”
“An even six feet, according to my driver’s license.”
“You’re still lying about that?”
“Not actively,” he says, “but that’s what I put down when I was sixteen, and you can’t really go into the DMV and say ‘hey, I need to change my height because I shrunk.’”
I pull back, letting my hands linger as they fall away from his body. “Good point.”
For a long moment, we hold eye contact; then Theo turns away, letting out a sigh. “I’ve got to shower and get to work. I’ll see you for dinner?”
“Sure.”
He smiles at me, his eyes sparking. He chucks my chin, and then, as he moves around me and heads for the master bath, throws out, “Love you so much.”
My response comes as a reflex—not the loaded, adult I love you , but the refrain of our childhood that eventually grew with us. I wonder if it could ever grow big enough to encompass who we are now. “Love you so much.”