Chapter 29
WOODVILLE, AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
LYSSA
The purple flowers along the edge of Mike’s driveway were overgrown. Heavy bloom clusters dripped from long stems and hung low over the path. I reached out and bobbed a few of them as we walked up to his door.
Chase had booked Caroline and I a room each at the Woodville hotel above the pub, and we’d stashed our bags there. It didn’t feel right to arrive at Mike’s house pulling my suitcase behind me. Even if I wanted to.
We’d slept on the plane, and Dean had collected us at the airport—he’d been here with Kev since the accident, although Hannah was home at their hotel with their dog.
Caroline suggested that Dean’s main reason for being here was to avoid his hotel guests, a jibe Dean accepted good-naturedly because we all knew how worried he was about Mike.
The main road from the airport to Woodville had reopened, thankfully, and we drove it under the beaming sun.
I didn’t think I would ever be able to travel on the alternate route that Mike had been on when the asshole who had been speeding nearly killed him.
I fidgeted as we had coffee with Kevin, killing time until Mike woke up.
After our last sips of espresso, Dean, Caroline, and I headed to Mike’s house on foot.
Each step up the concrete driveway felt like I’d stepped in this wet concrete after it had been poured, leaving a perfect imprint for my feet to find again now.
I found the key in the dead aloe vera plant by the door and let us all in.
Caroline went into his room first, and I lingered politely in the hallway.
When I heard Mike’s voice through the door, raspy with sleep but still intimately familiar, my stomach flipped.
Somehow, waiting two minutes for Caroline to be with her brother felt harder than waiting the whole eighteen-hour flight from America.
But I did it. They were Hollidays and they needed each other.
I listened to their murmurs, and what sounded like Caroline fussing and Mike cracking jokes.
“Where’s Lyssa?” the voice I craved rasped. “Didn’t she come with you?”
“She’s in the hall,” Caroline answered.
Sheets rustled and the bed creaked, which only subsided when Caroline said, “Mike, no! You’ll hurt yourself. Stop it!”
“I’m fine, Shrimp. Let me up.”
“Lyssa?” Caroline called. “Can you come in here?”
Suddenly unsure, I slipped through the door. Mike sat in his bed, supported by a mass of pillows—more than he owned. The pillows were all mismatched. I recognized one from Kev’s house, one that was Cilla’s favorite paisley print, and another that had u better bake, bitch embroidered on it.
Mike’s family and friends, clearly as despairing of his flat bachelor pillows as I was, had brought pillows from their own homes to prop him up.
In his arms, he clutched the lilac pillow with the ruffle from his spare room, the room I’d been in when I stayed here. He’d gone and moved my pillows into his bed.
That wasn’t why I was crying, though. Or not only. It was seeing him safe and awake and in front of me .
Mike held open his arms. I was a split second from diving into them when Caroline stuck a hand between us.
“Whoa, now. Remember you’re fragile,” she told Mike.
“Who, me?” Mike blustered. “I’m barely scratched.”
His eye was black and purple, there was a nasty cut trying to escape a bandage over his head, and he was moving with stilted care.
I perched carefully on the free side of his bed. “How are you feeling?”
His hand was warm, huge as ever, and gripped mine tightly. With the other thumb, he swiped a tear off my cheek. “Why do you ask, girl?”
A snort came from the doorway where Dean was leaning.
“Maybe because we had to peel you off the road like a possum carcass, mate.”
I blanched.
Mike scowled. “Can you not, mate?”
Dean screwed up his face. It was the most expressive I’d ever seen him. “That was your joke, you said that.”
“Yeah, but don’t repeat it in front of Lyssa, she’s upset.”
With a pink nail, Caroline flicked her brother’s forearm. “We’re all upset.”
“Don’t worry about possums, Lyssa,” Dean said. “They’re pests here. Like rats. No one likes them.”
“But Mike ,” I said in a voice that trembled. “We like Mike.”
One side of Dean’s mouth quirked. Joking like this was his way of relieving tension, I realized. Looking closer at him, there were bags under his eyes and his hair stuck up at the back, like he’d slept in a chair. He probably had. Dean loved Mike too.
“Only sometimes,” Dean replied. “Cup of tea, anyone? I’ll put the jug on.”
“Black tea with a slice of lemon for me,” Mike said, as if we didn’t know.
“There’s Splenda on the windowsill, use that for mine,” Caroline said.
“Lyssa?”
“However you have it.”
Dean gave a two-fingered salute and disappeared into the kitchen.
Mike ran his thumb over the back of my hand, a soothing back-and-forth stroke.
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to sob, to scream, to throw myself into his arms. Here at the bedside of my unexpectedly relaxed but injured love, everything I wanted to say or do felt like it would be too much, too hysterical.
More tears gathered in my eyes, threatening to spill with every blink.
Sniffling sounds revealed Caroline was fighting a similar fight.
With a last squeeze of my hand, Mike gingerly propped himself a little higher up against his crowdsourced pillow fort and patted his shoulder. Caroline perched on his other side and leaned her head where he had patted, taking care not to disturb his ribs.
“Where did you go over?” she asked quietly. “Do you remember?”
“That bend after Willis Road. Not the same corner as Mum.”
I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t realized it was the same fucking road .
“Oh, Mike?—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he soothed his sister, running a hand over her pink hair. “I’m okay. Everything is okay, Shrimpy. I’m fine. I’m here. Some things are outside of our control, aye? But I’m fine.”
“None of us are ever allowed to drive that road ever again.”
“I know.”
We sat with him, drinking tea and talking about nothing.
Mike absorbed our grief like a sponge. I had no idea how he was managing this, or why.
It was just his way, I had come to realize.
Mike didn’t like to see people he cared about upset, and his determination to reassure us made it even more upsetting that we weren’t the ones doing that for him.
Mike, beneath all his wisecracks and his posturing, was a sweet soul who would do anything for the people in his life. He was hardwired to care, to protect, to soothe the people around him.
He was the most amazing man I’d ever known. No wonder I loved him.
We sat with him for another hour. Eventually he took more meds and spooned up some of the soup Dean made for him. After that, he fell asleep. The weight of everything unsaid was heavy on my mind, but now wasn’t the time.
Caroline and Dean went back to the café. I hoped Dean was going to bed himself, because he looked like a zombie, his face pallid and eyes bleary. From the mulish look on Caroline’s face, she was going to insist that both her dad and Dean get some much-needed sleep.
While Mike slept, I tidied around the house, then picked a bunch of lemons off the tree and sliced them so he would have them for his cups of tea.
I went out to see Mini M and Baz, and while I was out there, I spent some time writing a text to my mom.
I chose my words carefully, but I told her firmly that I wanted to leave New York and move to New Zealand. I planned to keep doing my fashion influencing and maybe pick up some other marketing stuff too. I was happy here. I would not be happy at Brown.
The messages showed as delivered within seconds, which was surprising, as it was dinner time there, and Mom always put her phone on Do Not Disturb when she was hosting parties. It hit me abruptly, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, that this meant she had me set me up as a priority contact.
For her to consider a message from me important enough to interrupt one of her dinners told me more than the words she would never use ever could. My mom loved me. In her own way. She just didn’t understand me.
Her reply confirmed it.
Mom
If you’re sure that’s what you want, Lyssa, fine.
I’ll sell the Manhattan apartment. But if you decide you want to purchase an apartment in Woodville, let me know.
Charles and I will help. Send me pictures of Milford Sound if you travel down to the South Island of New Zealand.
Rudyard Kipling went there in the 1890s and declared it the Eighth Wonder of the World.
I would like a picture. Speak soon. Emily.
Smiling, I lay out in the grass with Mini M and lost track of time watching Mike’s chickens roam through the grass.
I didn’t scroll any feeds or check my notifications. They’d wait, and Mati would let me know if anything was important.
Mike woke later in the afternoon and called me—literally called my phone.
“Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“Outside where?”
“Outside with Mini M.”
His exhale was long. “You’re still here.”
My heart somersaulted again. “Yes. One sec.” I hung up and went to his room. “How are you feeling?” I asked from the doorframe. His hair was sticking up at funny angles, and one side of his mustache was pointing in the wrong direction, which made me smile.
“Like I’ve been hit by a car.”
“Facts.”
“Yeah.”
I attempted a smile, but it was watery. Mike patted the bed. “Come back here, girl.”
When I resumed my perch, he pulled my hands to his mouth and kissed them.
“I had a whole plan for how I was going to do this. But it can’t wait. Lyssa, I love you.”
Hearing him say it was even better than I imagined. Nothing could compare to this feeling. I was giddy, I was flying. I was loved .
“I want to be with you,” he continued. “Things between us were really good. With you, I was the happiest I’ve ever been.
I know I make you happy too. I want to make you laugh and make you come and make you enjoy being alive.
Will you take a chance on me, Princess? Will you try and make it work with me?
I know we have some stuff to sort—where we’ll live, all the animals—but I could be a city boy, I’m sure I could.
How hard can it be? You yell I’m walking here! at cabs and support the Knicks.”
“Yankees,” I corrected.
“Support the Yankees,” he nodded. “I can’t take the chooks to New York, which is a bummer, but Dean will look after them.
I promise I’ll be good to you, Lyssa. I’ll sit front row at all your fashion shows and let you dress me in whatever outfits you want.
And I’ll be on hand to pop fuckers like Paul in the mouth.
No one’s taking credit for your work on my watch. ”
He might have been exaggerating. But probably not.
“What about Mini M?” I asked.
His face fell and he hesitated before saying, “Where’s the closest place to your apartment I could board him? It’ll bankrupt me, I know, but I’ll do it.”
“I don’t think either of you will like New York,” I said. “You’re too used to being the biggest personalities in town. But I definitely like Woodville. What do you think, could I come back for a while?”
He inhaled sharply.
I added, “I’ll never be great at chores or meals or things like that, but I promise I will always find your mugs and always bring you ice cream after dinner.”
“Really?”
“Maybe not every night. Because I know you have ice cream during the day too. Maybe every other night.”
“No, do you really mean you’ll come here?”
I cupped his face in my hands and used my thumbs to smooth the hairs of his mustache so they were all going the right way. Then I lightly pressed my lips to his in a long, heartfelt kiss.
Eventually, he pulled away with a small grunt of pain.
“It’s okay.” I grinned. “Plenty of time for that when your ribs heal and I’m here on my working holiday visa.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yeah. Do you think I can convince Jason to let me take over as Woodville’s tourism lead? I have some great ideas for content for this place.”
“Definitely. I don’t even think Jase knows we made him head of tourism. We did it because he yaps to the tourists when he pours beers. But, Lyss, what about your fashion stuff?”
“I got tired of boys’ clubs and nepo babies and rumor mills.
Then when I found a decent job, I didn’t want it anyway, because my heart was here.
I’m going to keep doing fashion—but I’ll do my own fashion.
The kind no one else could ever take credit for.
I’ll spend a year here doing influencer work while I start designing my personal portfolio, and we can take it slow and see how things between us unfold?—”
Mike was shaking his head. “No slow. No unfolding. Move in with me, marry me. Now, today. Have kids with me, name them after fucking Shakespeare characters if you must?—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Mike Junior and Lyssa Junior?” he suggested.
“That’s more like it.”
Ignoring his ribs and my murmured protests, Mike pulled me into his arms.
“I love you, Mike.”
“I love you more, girl.”
I settled into his warm embrace, knowing this was exactly where I was meant to be. I’d had to cross the globe to find him, but it was worth it. Mike was worth it.
He was my other shoe.