34
Now
We stumble into my apartment, drunk. The champagne is only partially to blame.
“I think this has been one of my top best favorite nights ever,” I say between kisses.
Felix laughs. “It’s up there for me, too.”
I growl and give his bottom lip a little bite.
Felix pulls back, looking into my eyes with total seriousness. “You should know that you’re competing with the night Zach lost a bet and pierced his
nipple.”
I nod. “Fair.”
We haven’t left the hallway, haven’t taken off our shoes. We just keep kissing. I’m overcome with the need to make this moment last forever. I want to hold it between my hands like dough and stretch it out slowly and carefully so that it never ends. I feel a flutter of panic at the idea of going back to the ceaseless grind. I don’t want to come home to an empty apartment. And I don’t want to be without Felix. I want to be back on the island.
I pull away from him suddenly, digging my phone out of my clutch.
“Was it something I said?” Felix says behind me.
I peer over my shoulder. He’s looking at me, amused, tie askew, hair mussed from my fingers. Wonderful, gorgeous man.
“I’m getting organized,” I tell him, pulling up my calendar app. “I want to plan this out.”
“This?”
“Us. I don’t think I can wait a full month before I see you again.”
I frown at my screen.
“That’s a lot of pink and orange and green,” Felix says. “What does it all mean?”
I sigh. “Meetings, event installations, staff schedules.”
“Wow.”
I flip through to September, and it’s worse. “Everyone assumes summer is our busy time,” I explain when Felix’s eyes widen. “But things pick up in the fall in Toronto.” And I need to start interviewing for the new positions, and then train those people. “I’m never going to be able to leave the city,” I murmur absently.
We look at October. “Farah has time off over Thanksgiving this year. I forgot. I won’t be able to come to the island then.” My heart sinks. This is going to be a lot more challenging than I thought. I signed that contract with Cena without considering how it would impact Felix and me.
“I’m stressed just looking at this,” I say. “Why have I done this to myself?
How are we going to make this work?”
“Maybe seeing each other every month was too optimistic. But we don’t need to book any flights tonight,” he says. “We’ll be okay, Lucy. We’ll both be busy. I’ve promised Zach I’d scope out some new properties this fall.
Time will fly.”
I don’t think that’s true.
“I know we said we’d take things slow, but this feels like taking things nowhere.” I hadn’t thought it through before, but having Felix with me in Toronto has underlined how much long distance is going to suck. “You being there, me being here. It’s going to be hard.”
It’s going to be even worse when Bridget leaves in October.
I look around the apartment. The small kitchen that opens to the living and dining area. The round white table and wishbone chairs I made Bridget carry home with me all the way from Richmond and Bathurst. The pink sofa I bought after she moved out. The rose-colored glassware on the brass bar cart.
It all looks like me, but this place hasn’t really felt like home since Bridget
left. She’s what gave these walls meaning. Without her, it’s a book without words, a vase with no flowers. I don’t want to come home to this. I turn back
to Felix. Maybe I don’t have to.
The idea bursts from me like a rocket.
“I should move to PEI,” I blurt out.
Felix laughs, surprised, until he sees that I’m not kidding. “Maybe one day—”
I cut him off. “No. Like, now. I should move in with you.”
“Uh.”
“Think about it. It’s perfect. I love it there, and I love being with you. I can’t face my life right now, Felix. Bridget’s leaving, and I’m burnt out, and it’s only going to get worse. Look at this thing.” I wave my phone in the air.
“I think I might need to blow it all up. I want to go back with you.”
“Lucy.” He’s looking at me carefully. “It’s always hard to go back to normal life after a trip. I think you might be suffering from a severe vacation hangover.”
“No, I think I might be having an epiphany. I signed the restaurant contract, but I don’t even know if I really wanted to. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need to figure out what I want my life to be so I can live it fully.”
Saying the words out loud makes me miss Stacy all over. I want Italian take-out nights. I want her to take me to a play. I want her arms around me. I want dancing in the kitchen with Bridget. I want to grasp on to those moments, to wrap myself up in them. I want a soft place to land, and more than anything I don’t want to spend my nights alone. Here.
“You can’t do that, Lucy. We can’t do that.” Felix looks stricken.
“Why not?” The lines above his nose are deepening, but I press forward.
“Farah can take over the store for however long I need her to. It would be like . . . an extended vacation.”
Felix blinks. “Living on the island isn’t an extended vacation. I’m not one, either.”
“No, I know.” I blow out an exhale. “Of course I know that.”
“We both said we wanted to take things slow. It’s too soon to move in together. We haven’t even talked about our future together, not really.”
“I know, but we can sort that out, right? It’ll be easier if I’m there, without the rest of my life to worry about.” My brain is fuzzy but some part of it must know what I sound like. But the brakes have fallen off, and for some inexplicable reason I barrel on. “Felix, I just need some time to figure things out. I need to find myself, you know?”
As soon as I say it, I know I’ve made a mistake. And not just because Felix flinches.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
For a few seconds, he can’t speak. He swallows. “Lucy. I—” A shadow passes over his gaze.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m not her,” I say quietly, but I don’t think he hears.
“I—” Felix closes his eyes. One inhale through his nose. “Lucy, I don’t
think this is going to work.”
My lungs stop. “What?”
“Not right now.”
My lips part, but I can’t get words to come out.
“Lucy, I want to be with you.” He cups my elbows, face close to mine.
“But I need to know that you want to be with me for the right reasons—not because you need a break from your life.”
“It’s not just that, Felix. It’s you. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be without you.”
“I want that, too.” His hand finds my cheek. “I want you in my home, in my bed. I want us to have our own full days and come back and talk about them together. But I can’t start this unless you’re certain about us.”
“I am,” I tell him, louder. “I’m not sure what I want, but I know I’m happy when I’m with you. Work, living here, being lonely when Bridget moves away—that’s what I need to sort through.”
“And that’s okay. You don’t need to know what you want yet, and you should take time to figure that out. But I don’t think I could handle it if you came to the island for the wrong reasons and then decided I don’t have a place in your life after you’ve had time to reflect. If we do this, I want to do it properly.”
I take a beat to listen to what he’s said. This is the most important fight of my life, and I don’t want to get confused. “I need to think for a minute.” I stare into his eyes, desperation rising. I can feel the tears coming. “Don’t
leave. Please stay.”
“I’m not leaving. Let’s sit down.”
I get to the sofa. Felix brings two glasses of water, and I sip at mine until I can untangle my thoughts, repeat in my mind what Felix has said so that I can try to understand.
“I’ve never wanted to be with another person the way I want to be with you,” I tell him. “I’ve never liked anyone the way I like you.”
He swallows, then reaches for my hand. “Can I?”
I nod, and his fingers fold into mine. I squeeze.
“I can’t be your escape route.” He pauses, letting this sink in. “I don’t want to be a stop along your journey. I want to be the destination.”
“You’re scared.”
“Lucy, I am terrified. The way I feel about you . . .” His eyes are fixed on mine, pleading for me to understand. “You could break me so easily.”
The way he says it makes my heart ache. Felix deserves a relationship that starts from a steady place, and I can’t give him that today or tomorrow. It’s not the right time for him, and maybe it’s not the right time for me, either. I have a history of turning away from my problems instead of confronting them, and moving to PEI would be no different. And is it what I want? I can’t say I’m 100 percent certain. I need time to figure me out.
“I’m scared, too,” I tell him. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.”
“We can’t do this now,” I say. I know he’s right. I can’t run away from my life—I owe that to myself, but I owe it to him, too.
When the tears come, Felix bundles me against his chest. I try to soak up the smell of him, imprint it on my soul.
“Lucy.” His voice is thick. “There’s a reason we keep coming back to each other. We can come back to each other again.”
I burrow farther into his warmth. “What if we don’t?”
“I think we will.” Felix takes my shoulders in his hands, and gently leans me back so I can look at him. His cheeks are damp. “But if we don’t, then we know it wasn’t meant to be.”
“I don’t like that,” I tell him. “I’m mad at you,” I say with no heat.
“I know.”
I stare at him, this beautiful, caring, brilliant man. A man I admire more and more every moment we spend together. Even now. I want him to know. I need him to know. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“It’s going to sound corny, but I feel like I should say it in case I don’t get another chance.”
“I’m a big fan of corny,” Felix says, voice rough.
“I’ve always thought what you did was impressive—the way you started over. The life you’d planned was knocked off course, but you picked yourself back up. You and Zach had a dream, and you worked hard to make it a reality. And the cottages are incredible—I don’t know if I expressed that last year. I’ve always found it inspiring.”
Felix tries to smile. “That’s funny,” he says. “I’ve always thought what you did was impressive. You left your job, defied your parents, carved your own path. Corny or not, I think you’re inspiring.”
My chest hurts with how badly I want to hold on to him, to never let him leave. “We’ve been good for each other, I think,” I whisper.
“I think so, too.”
“Can you stay? Just for tonight? I sleep better when you hold me.”
He shakes his head, eyes glassy. “I’m going to go. If I don’t, I’m not sure I ever will.”
“Now?” I say, my throat going tight again.
“Yeah,” he says gently. “I think I better.”
He gathers his things from my bedroom as I wait near the door.
“Where will you go?”
“I’ll get a cab. Head to the hotel where everyone’s staying. Don’t worry about me.”
“But I will,” I tell him. “I’ll think about you all the time, and I’ll worry.”
“You don’t need to.” He looks at me like he’s trying to memorize me.
“Worry about you.”
“I don’t want to go another year without talking,” I say. “I want more than
an emoji.”
He turns around. “I can do that.”
I nod, and he opens the door. I know this is the part where we say goodbye, but I don’t think I can manage the word. So I lift my arm to wave.
But Felix captures my hand and presses a kiss to my palm. “I relish you,
Lucy Beth Ashby.”
He doesn’t say goodbye, either.
