19.
Since Bethany is still helping out at the farm when we finish up with Sora, Olive comes back to Anders’s place with us. We didn’t mention Sora in front of her, in case Anders changed his mind. But I told Dainese he was considering—so he thinks, but I know after he struggled to close the cage on Sora for five minutes, he will agree—and she stuffed a tote bag full of information packets and forms and mochi donuts.
When we get inside, I lay out the rest of the pastries on a plate and reply to a dozen texts from Taina asking for life updates every hour. I feel a little guilty since we usually text throughout the day, so I send a detailed account—sans Anders—and pictures of Sora.
While Olive and I finish up the last of the donuts, Anders walks in from a short call.
“Aunt Bethany is staying by the farm, you’re sleeping here,” he tells Olive, then me, with an explanation. “It’s a couple of hours away, and her astigmatism is bad at night. She’ll be back in the morning.”
Olive makes a victorious sound, then grips my arm. “Let’s watch all the Marvel movies.”
“Let’s,” Anders says, grabbing Olive’s shoulders and pushing her in the direction of the hall, “take a shower before anything else.”
She rolls her eyes. “I was in the ocean. The salt water already disinfected me.”
“A creative approach,” Anders says, “but not good enough. Shower.”
Olive shakes a thumb down in Anders’s face, the preteen equivalent of the middle finger, and I have to smother my laugh until she’s out of the room.
Anders stands there, puzzled. “Did she just flip me off?”
The laugh escapes me. “I’m pretty sure.”
“I used to be her favorite person.” He grabs my hand, which is still holding half a donut, brings it to his mouth and takes a bite.
I use the edge of my thumb to wipe stray frosting from his lip. “I’m sure you’re still at least in the top ten.”
He barks out a laugh. “At least.” He moves around me, trapping me by laying his hands on the counter by my hips. “You all set for tomorrow?
Need anything from me?”
I shake my head. “All good, don’t you worry. Unless you have insider information of what to expect from the bridal party.”
He grimaces. “Keep your purse by you. One of them, Jennifer, is a kleptomaniac.”
“Excuse me?” I blink. “Maybe I shouldn’t assume this, but I figured Valerie’s friends would be, I guess, in a similar financial situation as she?”
He nods. “You’d be correct, but that did not stop Jennifer from stealing one of my Rolexes and Aunt Bethany’s pearl earrings.”
“One” of my Rolexes is a hefty reminder of our vastly different tax brackets, and I try not to flinch. No matter what I pretend, I’m not really a part of this life. Maybe my life’s puzzle piece fits perfectly beside Anders’s, but we’re in different shades, presenting different pictures.
“And she keeps her around because?”
“She’s actually a really nice person,” he promises. “Just, use a bag with a zipper.”
“Noted,” I say, though if she saw what little I have, she’d probably deposit a couple of dollars into my purse.
“Hey”—Olive appears beside us, narrows her gaze between us—“are you guys in a fight?”
“Huh?” I say, as Anders asks, “What makes you say that?”
She looks to me. “All your stuff is in the guest room and in the bathroom.”
“Oh.” Anders looks to me, wide eyed, for help.
“Of course not,” I assure her. “That’s all my sister’s. She came to visit.” An easy thing to say since, technically, most of the clothes are hand- me-downs.
“Really?” Olive says, looking around as if Taina will suddenly appear.
“I didn’t know that, where is she?”
“Out with her husband,” I lie. “She came to stay for a bit, now they’re having a little TLC away. She’ll get her things when they’re back.”
“I want to meet your sister,” Olive says, as Anders grabs her shoulders again and starts pushing her to the hall. “Let me meet your sister.”
Unable to say another lie, I give her a thumbs-up as Anders takes her away. When they leave, I begin to clean up, my stomach starting a slow descent.
Olive is such a cute kid, and it’s clear she likes me. And I do her. It’s a lie that they’ll meet, but I know if she has any affection for me, she’d adore Taina. It would be cute to see them interact, but it seems I keep forgetting my time here comes with an expiration date.
“Lucinda,” Anders says, in a tone that says it’s not the first time he called my name.
“Sorry.” I put down the glass I just dried. “I think I need a shower. Can
I use yours?”
“Of course.”
I move to his room and feel his presence shadowing me as I go. When I enter, there’s a light scent of lavender.
“Thank you for cleaning the sheets,” Anders says, as if the scent reminds him to. “You absolutely didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” I say, heading to his attached bath, “but I like to clean. Helps me clear my mind.”
As I open the door, he grips the edge of it. “And what are you clearing
your mind of?”
You, obviously.
Instead of voicing the thoughts, I gently shove him away. “If I don’t get this layer of grime off my skin in the next sixty seconds, I’m going to puke.”
He nods, then reveals my vanilla-scented bodywash from behind him like a magician. “I snagged this when Olive was searching through the drawers. Figured you wouldn’t want to smell like sandalwood.”
“Sandalwood and mango,” I say, then immediately burn when he cocks his head as I admit not only do I like the way he smells, I know exactly what he smells like. “Okay, thanks, bye.” I snatch the wash and shut the door in his face.
I take the world’s coldest shower, and when it feels like my skin is going to harden into ice, I remain for another five minutes. The cold steals all thoughts. All I can focus on is the feel of it on my skin, and my teeth grinding while they chatter.
When I step out of it, the thoughts slowly make their way back to me.
The first, I realize as I wrap myself in a towel, is that my clothes are all in the room I claimed to be my sister’s. Would it be too suspicious to go in and sort through my suitcases when I should have my own drawer here, in Anders’s room?
I open the door slowly so it doesn’t creak, and peek out to see Anders hunched over his desk, swiping on a tablet with an Apple pen. There’s another smaller tablet beside him, propped up on a stand, displaying text in a font that’s thin on the top, thicker on the bottom, with wider space—a special font to help him read because of his dyslexia.
Curious, I tiptoe over. As I suspected, he’s working on a book cover.
He’s on the sketching phase, so it’s just two plain doodles of bodies, and on the side, a bunch of colors in dots like a digital paint palette.
I lean in to read the text when he says, “Is this your attempt at being sneaky?”
“Oh no,” I say, “just nosy. If I wanted to, I could sort through all your things, and you’d never realize.”
He chuckles as he finishes the curve of someone’s leg. “Good to know.”
“Is that the book?” I point at the propped tablet.
“Yes,” he explains. “It’s nice to have it as a reference when I’m
working on a cover.”
“Do you read the entire thing?”
“If it’s interesting enough.”
“Oh,” I tease, “so selective.”
He chuckles, then turns to face me. He stills, giving me a once-over before his gaze locks on to my face. His Adam’s apple bobs. My neck warms. He clears his throat.
“My clothes are in the other room,” I say.
“Right.” He gets up, carefully, so that our bodies don’t touch—a stark contrast from the normally easygoing way he reacts around me, and shuffles through his drawers. He pulls out a pale blue shirt and sweats. “Will this work?” His voice is this strained, polite, single tone.
“Perfectly.” My own voice sounds perky, airy, and I grab the clothes from him and change in the bathroom, slowly, trying to even out my breathing. I have to roll up the pants twice so I don’t trip on them, and the sleeves that probably stop just above Anders’s biceps fall midway down my arm.
When I come out, Anders is pulling out the thin sheet from under the comforter. He hears the door open and gathers it to his chest.
“Olive fell asleep in your room,” he says. “I’ll take the couch.”
“So much for movie night,” I say, plopping down on the side of the bed. “What will you say you’re doing if she walks out in the middle of the night and catches you on the couch?” The girl is too observant for her own good. It’ll raise another red flag if she catches us sleeping separately. It’s not a big deal if she knows, but if she relays that to Valerie or Bethany, it could bring too much suspicion on us. Or at least make it seem like we’re in a fight when I’m trying to get close to the family.
“Okay”—he grabs a pillow and tosses it on the carpet—“I’ll take the floor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I gesture to the mattress. “There’s plenty of space for both of us. And we’ve already slept together here.”
“Right,” he says. “When I was delirious with a fever.”
“Are you saying that the only way you’d share a bed with me is if you’re delirious?” Not to mention, he didn’t seem delirious when he wrapped himself around me. But adding that will feel way too angry- girlfriend-like, and I am just a phony.
“Of course not,” he says, looking from the floor to the bed. I can see the wheels turning as he tries to navigate this conversation.
“Unless,” I add, “you’re uncomfortable. Then I can take the floor. This is your house.”
Anders pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a frustrated sigh. I’m not sure what I’ve done to warrant it, seeing as I’m offering to sleep on the solid floor instead of him.
When I get up, I move to where he drops the pillow, and he grips my arm as I kneel. “Lucinda,” he says, “the reason I am trying not to share a bed with you is because I can barely control myself now. You’re in my clothes, still wet from your shower, and in my bedroom. I am a man.” The last part is said so deadpan, I can’t help but laugh despite the dots of
warmth sprouting throughout my body.
“You Tarzan, me Jane.”
He laughs, though there is still some frustration leaking into it. “Just get in the damn bed.”
I do, dropping a few pillows in the center as Anders moves to turn off the light, leaving only a sliver of moonlight to creep in from behind the sheer curtains of the windows. My eyes are adjusting, so I can’t see him well when we’re flooded with darkness, but I feel the mattress shift, and it
steals some of my air from me as it does, like the room just lost half its
oxygen supply.
“Good night,” he says.
“Night.”
We’ve been alone plenty of times, but this time, it’s a little hard to breathe. We’re both sober, there’s nobody around watching us, and we’re cloaked by the darkness while lying inches apart.
Of course I knew why Anders didn’t want to share a bed, but I was trying to be nonchalant. If we’re not going to acknowledge this blooming attraction between us, then I certainly am not going to be the first to say anything about it.
I link my fingers over my stomach, shutting my eyes and begging sleep to just take me. I remain like that for a few minutes before shifting, and shifting, and shifting. No matter how much I toss and turn, no position is comfortable enough for exhaustion even to pretend it’s ready to blanket over me.
After what feels like hours of turning, Anders says, “Are you okay?”
I pause mid-shift. “Yup, just . . . not tired, I guess.”
“Me either,” he says.
I chew on my bottom lip. Now that I know he’s up with me, I’m too self-conscious to keep obviously struggling to sleep. I fill the silence with,
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you work?” I ask. “Your stock makes you plenty to live off of. Why do you keep doing art?”
He hums, and I like the way it sounds, like the start of a ballad. “I love art,” he starts, “and I like that people like my art enough to want it.”
“Is it fun?”
“Most of the time,” he says. “If I have a block, it’s a little agitating, but usually it feels like relief. For me, it’s like there’s a bottle inside me, and when I’m not working on anything, it starts to fill up. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and it only goes away when I start to work on something. I have to keep pouring it out, so it feels light. Does that sound pretentious?”
“Not at all.” I smile at the thoughtful answer, at the hint of insecurity at the end of it. Anders can feel a little perfect, and that can be intimidating, but really, I’m learning, even if I think he’s without flaws, he doesn’t feel
the same. It makes him more human, more relatable instead of this rich, handsome, perfect man who always seems to know what to say.
Whenever I learn something about Anders, I’m eager to dig for even more. Like one taste makes me crave his whole life story. “How did you start getting into art?” I ask. “What’s your favorite way to work?” I sit up, lean on my arm, and face his blurry silhouette. “I found your website with your pseudonym, well, my sister did, and I looked through your stuff. I like your paintings, the landscape collection.”
He’s quiet for so long, and panic seeps into me. Was that too far?
Maybe I should have kept it to myself, but when lying so much to other people, it’s nice to speak honestly. With Anders, there’s really no need to lie, not when it’s just us.
“Or,” I say, “we can just go to sleep now.”
There’s a rustle of movement, and my eyes adjust to see his silhouette mirror my stance, leaning his head on his hand, facing me. “It’s just a little embarrassing.”
My mouth hangs open for a moment before I say, “I’m literally a jobless, houseless, twenty-eight-year-old two-time divorcée, and you’re worried about being embarrassed in front of me?”
“I hate when you talk about yourself that way,” Anders says. “Like those facts are these permanent identifiers for who you are, like it’s all you are. They’re not.”
It stuns me briefly, has my heart racing, and my stomach doing somersaults. I’m guilty of self-deprecating here and there, and speaking to myself that way doesn’t feel like too big of a deal, at least to me.
But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to have someone defend me, even if it’s from myself.
“Anyway.” I shift gears. “We’re talking about you.”
“And I’d much rather talk about you.”
“Just answer the damn question, Anders,” I snap.
He chuckles, and it feels like the noise brushes over my skin, tickling where it touches. When he finishes, he makes a small sigh. “When I was a kid, before I realized what was really going on, I used to think my mom was coming to get me. That one day she’d open up Aunt Bethany’s door and
bring me home with her.”
“Oh, Anders.”
“It’s okay, all in the past,” he says. “Back then, Aunt Bethany would take me with her everywhere, to try to distract me from the fact that my mom had left me. Whenever we’d go somewhere really nice, I tried to draw it as best as I could, to impress my mom. I’d give it to Aunt Bethany to mail to her, wishing she’d see one and hurry home to me. When she didn’t, I thought maybe I didn’t show how beautiful the places were, so I tried better the next time. Aunt Bethany would supply charcoal, or paint, or pencils, anything that I wanted. My mother never came, but I found that creating something helped fill the void she left behind. At least, temporarily.
“Aunt Bethany is a voracious reader, and we used to do this thing where she’d explain to me the setting of some fantasy book she was reading, or gush about her favorite character, and then she’d ask me to try and create it for her. So, that’s where the book illustrations came in.”
When I’m silent, Anders adds, “I told you it was embarrassing.”
“No, no, not at all.” The words come rapidly. “I just got so incredibly sad that I had to think of really angry things to keep from crying.”
He offers me a warm laugh. “Lucinda, no, I’m fine.”
“I know,” I say, then add, “But are you? Do you ever still wish for your mom to knock on your door? I do . . .” I hold out a hand he can barely see, probably. “I know our situations are entirely different, though.”
“At this point in my life, I’m pretty content with the understanding that Aunt Bethany is the closest thing I have to a mom.”
“You never refer to her as your mom,” I point out. “But you’ve only known Bethany. Is that something you’ve ever considered?”
“I-I,” he stutters, then says, “I wouldn’t want to burden her with that, especially now when she has an actual child.”
It would absolutely break Bethany’s heart to hear that. To know that her worries and heartaches, stemming from watching Anders continually make himself as small as possible because he views himself as a burden, still have a hold on Anders even now.
And it’s currently breaking mine, to see that someone so kind, and so lovely, and so generous, views himself in this way, and it makes me realize why Anders was offended with how I speak about myself.
“I know that I’m overstepping by saying this, but you’re the only one who thinks you’re a burden. Nobody else sees you that way,” I say. “And if I can’t speak badly about myself, then neither can you.” I lie on my back, letting my hands lie on my side.
Anders doesn’t respond right away. I hear him shift and then feel his fingers linking through mine.
After more silence, he says, “Thank you for showing me Sora.”
I laugh. “Thanks for showing you a dog?”
“Yes,” he says. “It makes me feel closer to you. When you share things you’re passionate about, you light up. You get this look like the whole world makes sense for a second. You care so much,” he says. “About dogs and people and everything. It’s nice to see someone care that deeply.”
For a second, I can’t say anything. Maybe because the compliment isn’t about how I look or how I sound or how I make someone else feel. It’s about what I care about, and that feels more meaningful.
I let out a slow breath. “That’s nice of you to say.”
He stays quiet, giving me space I’m not sure I want. This urge to let out some of my worries within me climbs to the surface in this quiet, comfortable moment we lie in.
“Honestly,” I say, my voice suddenly softer, “I’m scared about my life, about the future. I’ve been working toward this idea for so long. But what if I fail? What if I pour everything into it and it just doesn’t work out? What happens then?”
I clear my throat and go on. “This dream is the last one I’ve got left. If I lose this, I don’t know what’s left for me to want.”
He’s quiet for so long, embarrassment spreads through my bloodstream. I force a laugh. “That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”
He shifts closer, enough that I can feel the warmth of him beside me
even if I can’t see his face clearly.
“It’s not pathetic,” he says.
My chest stings. He sounds so sure. “I’ve already lost so much. My parents. My marriages. Years of my life to things that weren’t for me. And I know people say it’s never too late to start again, but I feel like I’m always starting over. What if, after this, there are no more beginnings? No new place to start from?”
It’s too much, probably. So I try to wave it away with a weak smile he can’t see. “Sorry, again, pathetic. You can cut some of my pay for emotional labor.”
Anders squeezes my hand again, more firmly this time. “You’re allowed to be scared. But Lucinda, you’re going to be okay. You haven’t lost everything, you’ve survived everything. That’s different. And the fact
that you still care enough to want something good, after all that? That’s not pathetic. That’s a strength I’ve never seen anyone else ever wear.”
My heart skips and speeds. I press the back of my hand against my mouth, trying not to let anything spill out that I can’t take back.
He adds, softer now, “I believe in you. I believe in this dream you’re chasing. But even if the impossible happens, and you don’t get what you
want—”
I cut in, voice tight, “Then what?”
“Then you’ll still be okay. You’ll still find yourself, and you’ll find new dreams. Dreams that fit the person you’ve become along the way.”
His words don’t erase the fear, but they don’t let it swallow me whole either. And I feel every fragile wall I’ve tried to build between us start to crumble.
Not because of some grand gesture—but because he notices. The small things, the big things, most things. Because he pays attention—not out of obligation, but because he wants to. Because his care is quiet and genuine, like everything else about him.
And I’m not entirely sure what to do with all this affection blooming in my chest.
