47
CHRIS
HEN I HEARD the key in the lock, Woofarine dove off the couchW cushion to meet her and I immediately sat up and smiled at the door.
Larissa came in beaming. “You will not believe what just happened,”
she said, peeling off her jacket.
“What?”
“I got a graze table order!”
I brightened. “You did?”
“They want three,” she said, hanging up her coat. “One for an engagement party, a smaller one for the rehearsal dinner, and then a big one for the wedding to serve a hundred and fifty!”
I grinned at her and got up.
She practically bounced while I crossed the room.
“This is like a whole month of income,” she said. “You know what this means? People will take my business cards off the table. And I’ll have more
pictures.”
She put her hands over her mouth.
I came in and hugged her.
I hadn’t touched her since the hug I gave her a month ago at New Year’s, when I got the kiss on the cheek. But I held her now so tightly I could
barely breathe.
I was so proud of her.
“I’ll be able to pay the loan back,” she said, her chin over my shoulder.
“Thank God.”
She laughed and pulled away to look at me. Her eyes were sparkling.
I would co-sign two thousand dollars and roll two thousand salami roses all over again every day to see that look on her face.
“I knew it would happen,” I said.
She laughed a little.
“I have an idea to celebrate,” I said.
“What?”
“How about I take you for a book haul.”
She gasped.
“You get two minutes to grab as many books as you can carry,” I said.
“Are you serious?”
“Totally.”
“I could just swipe books into a basket and you’d buy them,” she said.
“That is correct.”
She gave me a look. “Christopher, I could do a lot of damage in two minutes. I don’t think you understand how strong I am. I can carry a lot of
books.”
“Good.”
“Do I get to scope the store out before the clock starts?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She clapped her hands happily.
I shook my head. “I love how you won’t take my money but you’ll
bankrupt me at a bookstore.”
“Totally different thing,” she said.
“Is it though?”
“It is. The books are for us.”
I gazed at her.
Us.
I liked that word so much. Even if it didn’t mean what I wished it did.
Two hours later we were parked in front of a Toilet King billboard eating tacos from a food truck in a hardware store parking lot.
“Admit it, you’re impressed,” she said, smiling while she took a sip of her soda.
“I vastly underestimated your upper-body strength.”
She’d grabbed six hundred dollars’ worth of books. In two minutes.
Contrary to how much I’d been spending lately, I did not actually have a bottomless bank account. I made decent money and thanks to my parents I didn’t have student loans. I did have a mortgage though and a car payment and other bills.
Mom had left me a small inheritance when she died. That’s what I was
currently using for Larissa’s startup expenses and the haul. It was worth it.
Mom would have loved the money going to this.
Sometimes when I let myself focus on other things, when I got distracted like I did when I was with Larissa, I forgot that Mom wasn’t here.
It felt like I could pick up the phone and call her. Tell her about Larissa.
Tell her about Mike.
What would she think of all this?
Mom used to always say that most of us live normal, unremarkable lives for most of our lives. It’s in those rare small moments when we’re called to action that define us. What would she say about what was happening between me and Mike? Or about what I was doing for Larissa. Was I a good person or a bad one? Good for doing what was right for Larissa. Bad for feeling the way I do, even if the only thing I did with that was make her life better.
But even the good I did for Larissa didn’t entirely outweigh the bad.
Because if it wasn’t for the way I felt after the way he’d treated her, I’d still be friends with Mike. And I don’t think that made his life better.
Who really knows what’s the best or worst thing you’ve ever done?
Because you’re not always there to see how big the ripple gets.
Sometimes some small decision, some little unkindness could be the tiny stone to break the dam in someone’s soul, causing the flood that drowns them. I didn’t ever want to be the reason for someone’s flood. I didn’t want to drown Mike. But it was getting harder and harder with every day I spent with Larissa to not feel like I wasn’t drowning myself trying to honor what I felt was right by him.
If not for Mike, I would have kissed her a hundred times by now. Asked her on a thousand dates.
I wished there were a world where nobody existed but us. Where nobody could be hurt by anything we did.
Larissa nodded to the tree line by the parking lot. “Deer.”
I locked the doors and she laughed.
“You are too much,” she said, taking a bite of her taco.
“Still?” I said, looking back and forth between her and the window.
“After the near-death experience last year?”
“All animals are protective of their babies,” she said.
“I’d rather meet a bear in the woods,” I said, putting my straw to my
mouth.
“Ha. We should do that walk again, but with supplies this time.”
“No grape blood water?” I asked.
“Maybe a little? Just for tradition?”
I chuckled.
“How was work today?” Larissa asked in between bites.
“I had a lady come in looking for Imodium. She said she had to poop so bad on the way over she put on the hazards because she didn’t know what else to do.”
She grimaced. “I hate to say it, but sometimes I think my job is better than yours.”
“Oh, you mean nobody tried to bribe you with cheese curds for Percocet
today?”
I smiled at the sound of her laughter.
“These are good,” she said, nodding at the food in her lap.
“Yeah. One of my favorite taco trucks.” I glanced at her. “I would have probably taken you here that night after the concert, you know.”
“Oh, great, I missed out on even more?” she said.
“Your fault for picking the guy who looks like an underwear model,” I said, squeezing lime over my carne asada.
“Would you have asked me out that night?” she said. “If I’d gone with you?”
I shook my head. “No. Definitely not. I probably wouldn’t have even asked for your number. Too shy.”
“So you would have given me the best tacos of my life and then just vanished after you dropped me off?” she teased.
I gave her an amused look. “Would you have gone out with me? If I
asked?”
“After these tacos? Yes.”
“Ha.”
She finished her food and balled up her napkin. “I wasn’t really looking to date. But yeah, I probably would have gone out with you. I would have liked you.”
“I wouldn’t have asked. I was dealing with the stuff with my mom. And
I would have been too intimidated.”
She guffawed. “Stop.”
“It’s one thing to offer you a ride home, it’s something else to ask you on a date. It would have felt too important and I would have chickened out.”
“You would have asked me,” she said dismissively. “If we went for tacos and we were hitting it off. And how intimidating could I be? I didn’t even have shoes.”
I cracked up. “No. But I would have gone into Donna’s hoping to see you. I would have gone in just to see you. I would have gotten the courage to ask you. Eventually.”
“And now look, you have no problem bossing me around.” She tilted her head. “See how far you’ve come?”
I made an indignant sound. “I don’t boss you around.”
“Christopher, I’m not even allowed to drive my car.”
“That is for your safety. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you,” I said, taking the last bite of my taco.
“So you’ve said.” She rested her head on the seat to look at me. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you either.”
I gave her a soft smile.
“I would have found you online or something after you dropped me off and followed you,” she said. “Slid into your DMs.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. The hard-to-get thing would have made me want you more.”
“Ha.”
“You intimidated me too,” she said.
I pulled my face back. “Me? How?”
“Because I know how smart you are.”
“You’re just as smart as me,” I said. “Smarter.”
She gazed at me. “I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am if it wasn’t for you.”
“You were always going to be something,” I said. “It just would have taken longer.” I balled up my napkin now too. “But I will take credit for being a very savvy businessman with an eye for good investments.”
“Stop it,” she laughed.
We smiled at each other. Then the corners of her lips dropped the tiniest bit. “Can I see your hand?” she asked. Then she reached for it.
The reflex not to touch her was gone now. I let her take my hand and watched her run a thumb over the shiny scars where the scabs from hitting
Mike used to be. My heart didn’t leap out of my shirt like I thought it would at the unexpected touch from her—it just hurt instead.
“I wish this healed better,” she said sadly.
“They’ll fade,” I said while she frowned at the marks on my knuckles.
I wanted so badly to thread my fingers in hers.
I wanted to lean across the seat and kiss her.
If this last month had taught me anything it was that Larissa was never going to be just some woman to me. I think it was always supposed to be us. But she’d taken a different path and even though we’d found our way back to each other, it couldn’t be like it should.
There are lots of ways to love someone, I realized.
You could go your whole life never touching them and it didn’t negate the feeling. She could be the love of my life, even if we only ever had this.
Having dinner with her every night, her sweaters on the back of my chairs. Woofarine always smelling like her.
I felt privileged just to be able to talk to her whenever I wanted. To help her, to be useful to her in any way. To open a jar for her, pick something up at the store and bring it home, to wash her coffee cup and put her clothes in the dryer.
It’s the way it’s supposed to be with people you love. The unrelenting
urge to care for them.
The pain and longing when you can’t.
I loved that she nested in my home. Sprinkled colorful little things all over the house the way she did at the apartment with Nancy. Made it her own. I could feel her in every room but mine and it made me never want to go to bed. She burned candles that smelled like cookies and organized the library in her room and put Mom’s paper quilling in the middle of the shelf.
Mom would have loved it, to be remembered, nestled in with all those books in the bedroom where she always stayed when she came to visit.
Larissa brightened my life. I was beginning to forget what it was like
before she was here.
I didn’t want to remember.
“I would have put my gloves on your feet before I carried you to the car,” I said quietly.
Her eyes came back up to mine. “When? After the concert?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t believe he didn’t cover you up.”
Something sad slid across her expression. “You would have started being you, right from yes, wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Why did you stop talking to me?” she asked. “When you started dating Heather?”
I let out a slow breath. “Because it was too hard. Seeing you with him.”
“I was so jealous when I saw Heather in the car.”
I blinked at her. “You were?”
“Oh yeah. I hated her.”
“I thought you were carsick.”
“I think I was heartsick, actually.”
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. It was weird talking through this.
The what-ifs. The truth. Having it just be out there in the open, on the table.
Us both knowing it. Acknowledging it.
She stared silently at my hand like maybe she was thinking about
threading her fingers through mine too.
She let go of me instead.
“How was Lexi?” I asked, changing the subject.
She shrugged. “Good. Still dating that guy. Working in Minneapolis.
You know what she said?”
“What?”
“That I’m out of survival mode.”
I looked back at the billboard. “Are you?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“I think I am too.”
“You were in survival mode? Why?”
“Because I worried about you. I don’t have to do that anymore. I mean, I still worry about you,” I said, glancing at her. “It’s just different now. With
you here.”
She studied me.
“You know what I realized today?” she said.
“What.”
“I’d go through any door with you.”
I turned to look at her. She gazed back at me, something earnest in her expression.
And then we just sat with it. Because what else could we do?
Half an hour later, Larissa and I were taking the last bags of books to the bookshelf in her room when someone knocked on the front door. Woofarine started barking.
“Expecting someone?” she asked, stopping.
“No.”
She turned and looked out the peephole. “Oh, it’s Jesse.” She set her bag down and opened the door. “Hi,” she said, smiling, stepping aside to let him in.
“Sup,” he said, stomping snow from his boots. “Fuck, it’s cold out there.”
“Hey,” I said, setting my bag down. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
He looked around the living room while he took off his coat, our dog leaping at his feet. “Yeah, well, you’re not really on the group chat so.
Figured I should make sure you’re alive.” He looked at Larissa. “How you
been? You good?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Just hustlin’.” He nodded in my direction. “Hey, mind if we have a few minutes?”
Larissa glanced at me. “Sure,” she said. She picked up my books and went to her room with Woofarine and shut the door.
Jesse hung his jacket and joined me on the sofa.
“So what you up to?” he asked, sitting.
“Not much. You want something to drink?”
“Nah. Thanks.” He scanned the living room. His eyes settled on Larissa’s sweater draped over the back of a chair. “You’ve been kind of MIA,” he said, looking at it. “Haven’t been going to the gym.”
“Don’t feel like it.”
He looked back at me. “Didn’t go to lunch with us the other day too.”
“Didn’t feel like that either,” I said.
It had been over a month since the cabin. I hadn’t seen anyone. And it wasn’t for lack of them trying.
Mike tried hardest of all.
Xavier called twice. I sent him to voicemail. I didn’t know what he wanted to talk about, but I had my guesses.
“So you’re just gonna ghost everyone, then, huh?” Jesse teased.
I didn’t answer.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “He’s not mad about it, you know. He knows why you hit him. He forgives you—”
“I don’t forgive him,” I said.
“He was messed up, man.”
“I’m just not ready to talk to him right now,” I said. “And you pushing me into it isn’t going to change that.”
“Don’t you even want to know if he’s okay?”
“Is he?” I asked.
He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Define okay. He’s working for Tony. He fucking hates it, but he’s doing it. Moved out of Donna’s too. Got an apartment in New Hope. Got a therapist.”
I looked away from him. “Good.”
“He’s doing it for her, you know.”
I glanced back. “Doing what?”
“All of it. He wants her back. I think hoping for that is the only thing keeping him going. I think it’s the only reason why he’s not full twelfth- grade right now. Or worse.”
I nodded slowly. “You know that’s not going to happen, right?”
He puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah. I figured. But if hoping is what gets
him through it, let him hope.”
We sat there in silence.
He leaned toward me. “How long is she going to be here?” he whispered.
I blinked at him. “As long as she wants to.”
“Look, dude, I get why you’re helping her,” he said, his voice low. “But
it’s sort of inappropriate, no?”
“What’s inappropriate? We’re friends.”
“She’s living with you.”
I pressed my lips together. “And?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he said quietly. “I know you’d never do that. But think of how this makes Mike feel. I mean, he didn’t say
anything but you’re barely speaking to him and you’ve got his girl here—”
“She’s not his girl. And I’ll help her as long and as much as she needs.”
He studied me. The conversation wasn’t going the way I think he’d hoped it would. But I was not negotiating when it came to Larissa. Not anymore. I was going to do what was right for her—and I really didn’t care if it was right for Mike when it was Mike’s fault she needed help in the first place.
“You understand how she got here, yes?” I said. “You were there.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t she have her own friends she can stay with? There’s
gotta be another option—”
“There isn’t,” I said.
He blew a breath through his nose. “Right. You know, I’m not the only one saying this. Tony thinks it’s weird. And Donna’s not very happy with you right now—”
“I couldn’t care less what Donna thinks.”
“Well, my mom thinks it too. It’s not cool, man. I’d be pissed as hell if Becca and I broke up and she was living here. You have to see that, right?”
“If you almost killed Becca, I wouldn’t give a shit about what you think then either.”
“Oh yeah? Because I’m getting the feeling Larissa and Becca are pretty fucking different when it comes to you.”
I bristled. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“I think you know what I’m saying.”
He looked me dead in the eye.
“I guess you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do, right?” He pushed up on his knees and walked to the door. “Just wanted to stop by and give you my thoughts. In case you still give a shit.”
“I am not the asshole here.”
He put his boots back on. “You sure?” He grabbed his jacket and let himself out.