by Carrie Quest
What?
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“Making you do the hard shit,” he says. “Like I told you.”
I call out, but he’s gone. There’s a scuffle and a squeak, and then someone’s on the other end of the line, but it’s not Adam anymore.
Natalie.
I can hear her breathing.
I press the phone to my ear so hard it hurts, listening, but she doesn’t speak, and I wonder if I’m wrong. Maybe she hung up as soon as he handed her the phone and I’m hearing the echo of my own ragged breaths. I groan in frustration and there’s a sigh in response. It’s not much, just a tiny little breath of a sound, but I know it’s her. I’ll always know it’s her. If in ten, twenty, thirty years she dials my number and makes that sound, I will recognize it instantly and, like now, my body will react with a longing so strong I’ll have to sit down hard on the nearest surface before I crumple to the floor.
“Ben,” she whispers. I can barely hear her, but the sound still crashes through me. I just sit there for a few minutes, I don’t even know how long, listening to her breathe.
“Congratulations,” I finally offer. “Adam told me, about the agents and everything.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I’m still deciding, but I think I’ll go with Felicity Burns. She was the first one who contacted me.”
“I remember. What did your parents say?”
She huffs out a laugh. “They still think a creative writing major is a mistake, but the agent's offer impressed them enough that they’re going to pay half my tuition.”
“That’s good.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yeah, I did.”
Silence.
“I wasn’t sure you got the email,” she finally offers. “You didn’t write back.”
“Yeah, well, you told me not to contact you.”
She sucks in a breath when she hears the anger in my voice, and I feel like a dick. I don’t want to fight with her. I don’t even know what I want anymore.
“That’s fair,” she says quietly. “I probably shouldn’t have sent it. I just wanted you to know it was done. I missed you.”
“Even though being with me was a mistake?” Huh. Not sure where that came from. Maybe I do want to fight with her.
“Ben…” she starts. I don’t give her a chance to finish.
“Forget it,” I say. “You were probably right about the talking thing. This is too hard. I’ll let you go. Good luck with the agents and the book.”
I spit out that last sentence in a bitter tone that makes me sound like a jackass, but I’ll find time to care about that later. I need to get off this phone before I start punching holes in the wall.
“No,” she says. “You’re not letting me go that easily. I’m sorry I said we were a mistake. It wasn’t true, and I shouldn’t have said it. I was scared. I loved every second of being with you.”
The raw honesty in her voice chases my anger away. “So why didn’t you ask me to stay?”
“I didn’t want to stand in your way.”
I sigh. “I know. It would’ve been nice to hear, though.”
“Yeah, well, it would also have been nice to hear that you thought my dreams were as important as yours.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You marched in here and asked me to give up everything, to fit my life into yours.”
“I asked you to travel the world with me,” I point out. “It wasn’t supposed to be a punishment.”
She growls a little, and even though I’m pissed as hell right now, I still feel it in my dick.
“Of course it wouldn’t have been a punishment,” she says. “But it wouldn’t have been my life either. Can’t you see that?”
“I wanted to make it our life, Natalie. Ours together.”
“I don’t think me giving up everything would be a very good start to building something together,” she says. “What if you were in the middle of a training program in Boulder and I walked in one night and asked you to move across the world with me?”
“I would go in a heartbeat,” I say.
“Even if your entire support system was in Boulder: your coaches, your friends, your gym? Even if you had plans for your career starting up again in a few weeks? Would you really just drop it all and leave, not knowing if you’d be going to a place where you could hit your goals? Can’t you at least try to see it from my point of view?”
I bite back my retort and take a minute, trying to do what she’s asking. When I answered before, I was speaking with my heart—of course I would want to follow her anywhere, but could I actually do it?
Probably not.
So what made me think it was okay to ask her to make that sacrifice? Why does snowboarding always make me blind? A couple hours after deciding to come back and my career shot up to my number one priority, like always. All that shit I thought I learned this summer about building a life disappeared.
I stand again and start pacing around the room. People are stirring now, doors opening and water running in the bathrooms and the kitchen. The van will be here soon to pick us up and take us to the hill. I should hang up, finish getting dressed, and get my shit together, but I don’t. I’m in the middle of something more important than snowboarding.
“I know your heart was in the right place,” she says. “But it would never have worked. No balance.”
Fucking balance. Why does it come so easy for me on a board and so hard everywhere else?
“You’re right,” I say.
“You sound surprised,” she says suspiciously.
“Only at my endless capacity to be a tool. I shouldn’t have asked that of you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to tell you no without being a dick and pushing you away.”
“I deserved it.”
“Maybe a little,” she says, a smile in her voice.
“I really liked the book,” I say. No matter what happens next, I need her to know that. “You nailed it. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks. I was really hoping you’d call me after you read it, you know? After you saw the hidden message.”
“You mean your email?” I read that message a thousand times, there’s no way I missed out on any hidden message.
“No, the message in the book.”
“You lost me,” I say.
“I thought…” she pauses and sighs. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”
“Tell me,” I urge, because it’s now or never, right? We may as well get it all on the table.
The words tumble out of her now, like she’s afraid if she goes too slowly, she won’t say them at all. “I thought maybe you’d see that I made her figure out how she could have both things: the love story and the demon fighting. And that maybe you’d write back and ask me if that meant I thought we could figure out how to have both things as well, you know?”
“The love story and the demon fighting?”
She laughs, and my blood starts racing, because if she’s saying what I think she’s saying, then maybe this isn’t over. Maybe there’s hope.
“The love story and whatever else we want to have,” she says. “I mean, demon fighting is encouraged, of course, but I would also accept other pursuits.”
“So your entire book was a cryptic clue about the future of our relationship?”
“It wasn’t that cryptic,” she says.
“You killed the love interest,” I point out. “The guy got zapped by a magical lightning bolt. His ashes are buried miles deep under Paris. The only reason your character gets to have both things is because her boyfriend is dead. I didn’t exactly find that encouraging.”
“He’s getting resurrected in book two,” she says. “Didn’t you read the epilogue?”
“Still not encouraging.”
“I guess I see your point.”
“You could’ve just called me,” I say.
“I was scared you’d tell me no.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that,” I say truthfully.
“So, you think we could do it? Have the love story and the demon fighting?”
I pause. Everyone’s filing past me now, carrying boards and wearing their gear. The van’s in the driveway, big clouds of smoke coming out of the tailpipe as it idles and waits for us to get out there and load up. It’s now or never.
“Ben? Are you still there?”
I clear my throat. Autumn stops in the doorway, a piece of toast in her mouth, and looks back at me with her eyebrows raised.
“I’m still here,” I say.
“What do you think would happen? If we were together again?”
I laugh, low and dirty so she knows exactly what I’m thinking about. She gets it too, because she lets out one of those little gasps, and now I’m hard as hell and the driver outside is laying on the horn.
Autumn goes to close the door, but I catch it and wave to the driver, holding up a couple fingers. They can wait two minutes.
“I know exactly what would happen if we were together again,” I tell Natalie. “But I can’t get into it right now. I have to be somewhere.”
“Okay,” she says. “Well, goodbye, I guess. Can we talk again soon?”
“Very soon,” I agree.
Three minutes later I’m on my way.
31
Natalie
I didn’t sleep at all the night after dropping Adam off at his new place. He’s staying onsite in the family housing complex, so it was a short trip. Neither one of us said a word about the stunt he pulled with the phone, we just grinned at each other as we hauled his bags in and out of my car and then went out for some “real fucking food for a change.” It was a good day.
Then I came home and stared at my phone all night, waiting for Ben to call. I tried him a couple of times, the hollow feeling in my stomach growing with each ring. He didn’t pick up.
Maybe I read that whole conversation all wrong.
Maybe I imagined the part when he said we’d talk very soon.
How soon is “very soon” anyway?
Ugh.
So this morning I left my phone at home and took Thor for a killer hike in the mountains, determined not to obsess or give in to the temptation to open that anonymous question app and ask every guy online their definition of “soon.” No good can come from soliciting strangers on the internet.
When we got back in the late afternoon, it all hit me: the no real sleep for weeks; the stress of choosing an agent; the emotional roller coaster of talking to Ben. Plus, the unfamiliar aches and pains from hiking. One shower, half a beer, and ten minutes of a movie was all it took to knock me out.
I wake up hours later, bathed in the blue screen of the TV. Chuckles feels me stir and starts purring and kneading the blanket, shifting his weight to make it even harder for me to get up.
“Don’t get your furry pantaloons in a twist,” I mutter. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I’ve spent a lot of nights on the couch since Ben left. It makes me feel a little closer to him somehow, using his blankets and sleeping where he slept at the beginning. Plus, it’s comfy and close to the snacks.
I snuggle back in and try to go back to sleep, but there’s a crash on the porch and Chuckles’s purr motor shorts out, right before he tenses and pushes off my stomach to leap to the end of the couch.
I’m pretty sure he crushes a few of my internal organs, and all I can do is lie there groaning as he stares at the door, his tail whipping back and forth. Something crashes again on the front porch and I think I hear a curse, but then Thor comes sprinting in from the kitchen, yapping and whining, and starts throwing himself against the door.
Now I’m definitely up, adrenaline zipping through me. I grab my half-empty beer, push Chuckles off the end of the sofa, and raise the bottle up so I can bash any heads who come through the door. I mean, it’s probably raccoons, but it pays to be ready.
The lock clicks and Thor goes nuts, wriggling on the floor like someone is breaking in to rub his belly and feed him those treats I keep on top of the fridge. He’s usually pretty protective, especially since Ben left, so this is weird.
Unless he knows the person on the other side of the door.
I drop the bottle with a thud on the little rug in front of the door. Warm beer pools on the floor and Thor starts licking it up, which is probably bad, but I can’t say anything to stop him. I can’t say anything at all.
The door opens, just a tiny sliver, and whoever is on the other side sticks a piece of paper through. It’s a triangle with one ripped edge, and when I look closer I see it’s one flap of an old takeout Chinese food container, attached to a chopstick. A white flag.
My breath comes in shallow pants as my mystery visitor feeds it through the crack in the door and I reach out, my hand shaking, to grab it.
I come in peace is written on one side.
Please don’t throw a cat is on the other.
I don’t. This time, I throw myself.
I swing the door open so hard the knob crunches into the wall, but I barely notice because Ben steps inside, and all I can think about is getting into his arms. I launch myself toward him and he catches me.
He pulls me in close, and we stand there for I don’t know how long, breathing each other in and not saying a word. My heart is racing, and I can hear his thumping strong and steady in his chest. He rubs his cheek over the top of my head and his stubble catches on my hair. It pulls a little, but I don’t move. I’m too greedy for his smell and his warmth and the way his hard body softens to cradle me.
He breathes out my name, and I raise my face to his, smiling up at him as he softly palms my cheeks.
“You’re here.” My voice is quiet, the softest whisper, because if I speak too loud, I might break the spell and I will shatter if he disappears.
“I’m here,” he agrees.
His eyes close when I reach up to touch his face, rasping my palms along the prickles on his jaw and then tracing the strong lines of his cheekbones with my fingers. I catalogue the changes: the new freckles on the bridge of his nose, the faint tan lines from his goggles, the slight chapping on his lips.
His lips.
I trace the bow of his top lip, first one side, then the other, ending in the center. When I move down to the bottom one, he sighs, warm air ghosting over my skin, then opens his mouth and sucks my finger gently in.
I gasp, and his eyes fly open. They’re dark and heated, and I pull my finger out of his mouth because if I don’t kiss him in the next three seconds, I’m going to combust.
He lets my finger go with a little pop and stares down at me.
“I fucking missed you,” he says, his voice thick and heavy, like it’s full of so many other things he wants to say.
“I missed you too.”
He smiles, giving me a flash of dimple that makes me press my thighs together and moan.
Then he kisses me, soft and sweet and perfect.
I press closer and open my lips to let him in, but he pulls back and shakes his head.
“Not yet,” he says. “I owe you a celebration.”
“Does this celebration take place in a bed?” I turn my head to drop kisses on one of the hands still cradling my cheek, then move down to run my tongue over his tattoo.
“Not yet,” he rasps out, then groans when I lick tight little circles on his palm.
“Soon?”
“Very soon.” He runs hooded eyes over my tank top and sleep shorts and drops his hands, clenching them at his sides. “But I need to do this for you first.”
He grabs a backpack from the porch and nudges me toward the couch, so he can shut the door. Thor jumps on him and wiggleworms against his legs, desperate for attention.
Get in line, buddy.
“Sit,” he urges me.
I drop down and watch as he heaves his bag onto the chair and starts digging inside.
He pulls out a winter coat and drops it on the floor
, and that’s when I notice he’s wearing snowboarding pants.
“Did you get lost on the way to the mountains?” I ask.
He looks up and hits me with those dimples again. “Nope. Didn’t have any other clothes. The van was leaving right when I got off the phone with you, so I grabbed my backpack and took off. Bribed the driver to take me to the airport in Queenstown.”
“What about your stuff?”
He shrugs. “It’ll be there.”
My heart sinks a little. “You’re going back.”
“I have to,” he agrees. “In a week or so, but it’ll be different this time. We’ll call each other and do video chats. I’ve been thinking about it and the phone sex potential is staggering.”
I laugh. “Thought about this a lot, have you?”
He looks at the clock. “I’ve been traveling for over thirty-six hours and the movies on the plane were shit. I’ve thought about all the kinds of sex I’m going to have with you.”
Aaaand I’m melting.
“Soon?” I ask.
“Very soon,” he promises again.
He pulls a bottle of champagne out of the backpack and holds it up. “I got this at duty free, so it’s okay,” he says. “The rest of it is a little weird. Not much open at this time of night and I was in a hurry. We’ll do it up right tomorrow.”
He pushes the coffee table out of the way, grabs a blanket off the couch, and lays it carefully out on the floor, smoothing it down so it’s flat.
“Come on.” He holds out a hand pulls me to the floor.
I can’t speak around the lump in my throat, so I just nod and follow him to the floor. He pops the cork on the champagne and pours it into two plastic cups, handing me one.
“To you,” he says. “I knew you could do it. I’m so fucking proud of you, Natalie.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
We click glasses and I take a sip, letting the fizzy bubbles run down my throat. It’s a little warm and the plastic cup isn’t fancy, but it’s the best champagne I’ve ever tasted.
“I couldn’t get the cream cheese and tempura green chili rolls,” he says. “So this will have to do for tonight.”