by Ginger Scott
“Not that anyone will care, babe, but you look great. You smell fine,” he says through a chuckle. “Now, come on.”
“Okay,” I say, wide-eyed and sure he’s lying about all of that no-smelling business. I’m in forty-eight-hour-old clothes, and I slept on orange vinyl.
I follow Reed through a pair of doors when a nurse buzzes us through. We get to a round bank of rooms around an incredibly busy nurse’s station. It’s the CCU, for cardiac care. It doesn’t look much different from the rooms I’ve been in with Buck.
“Is everyone in there?” I scan the area trying to pick out Jason’s room.
“No, Rose drove Buck and Peyton to the rental to get some rest. It’s just Sarah, and she’s not leaving,” he says, holding open the last door we get to on our right.
My best friend looks up at me, lifting her head from Jason’s chest where he rests on a bed, a million machines beeping, dripping and pumping at his bedside.
“Hey,” my friend says, standing and hugging me harder than she has in our lives. Her voice is so raspy. She’s been crying all night. “Did you hear? He came through like a champ. Doc said he was lucky, and that with a little diet change, he should be okay.”
“They said no beer,” Jason says with a gravelly voice behind her. I move closer to the bed and reach for his hand.
“I think you Johnson boys could all use drinking a little less beer. It just gets you in trouble,” I say, lowering my eyes at him. Reed rubs his belly at my other side and lifts his shirt.
“Are you saying I have a beer belly?” he jokes.
I pat it with a cupped hand, making a smacking sound.
“Not at all,” I deadpan. It makes Jason laugh but then wince.
“Sorry, I’ll try to be less funny,” I say. I move up to his head and hug him, kissing his cheek.
“Hey, did you hear the news?” I step back and pull my brow in, my own belly quivering with nerves all of a sudden. Did Reed tell them?
I glance to my husband, and his expression is tight, his shoulders hunched. I’m about to slap his arm for breaking the news without me when Jason shifts everything.
“Dallas wants him. Three years. I couldn’t take the call, obviously, but my assistant did. It’s on the table—the dream gig.”
My breath stops along with my heart. I can feel the rush of blood leaving my face and chest and dropping down my legs. I steady myself on the edge of Jason’s bed and beg myself not to say the words streaming through my head.
“Oh,” I blink rapidly and shake my head.
Smile, Nolan. Make your lips curve up.
“That’s…” I look to Reed, his eyes squinting more with the lift of his cheeks, his own brand of pretend smile covering his teeth. This isn’t how he wanted me to find out about this.
I swallow rocks. With another shake of my head, I will away the sting of tears, and without even thinking, my hand moves to my stomach. Reed’s eyes catch the motion and his fake smile breaks just a little.
“That’s…amazing. Just…wow,” I say. I know Sarah can hear the difference in my tone. She won’t question it now, not with Jason where he is and with all of us in the room together. She knows how I feel, how I’ve been hoping. She just doesn’t know about the pregnancy, and now I really don’t want to tell anyone.
I let Jason share a little more. I stare at things in his room until my vision starts to blur and I have to move my focus on to something else. I nod and smile, and I grab Reed’s fingers loosely, then let my hand fall. It happens a few times, like the will to hold on just isn’t there. When a nurse comes in and sends Reed and me away to give Jason rest, I’m grateful for the break from faking it. But I also don’t know what to say to my husband. I don’t know anything.
He waits until we get to the elevator. Once we step inside, behind closed doors, his breath shakes and his body turns to me.
“It’s just an offer. I didn’t want to get into details with him…now, ya know? I haven’t decided anything…”
“Sure…yeah,” I say, my brow bent and my heart burning.
“Noles, I didn’t know this was coming. He was just excited and I think he’s scared after everything that happened.”
“No, yeah…I get it,” I say, flitting my eyes up to him and reaching for his hand. I squeeze it hard this time, but I still let go.
“I think I’m just…I’m exhausted. That’s all. My neck hurts and I’m really hungry, so…yeah. We can figure it out later, or after…”
I swallow and Reed does the same when our eyes meet.
“After,” he nods.
My lips pull into a tight smile, more pretend, and I say that meaningless word again.
“After.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Reed
My dad and Rose went back home with Peyton a few days after the surgery. Nolan’s been gone for a week. I’m flying home with Sarah and Jason. He just got cleared after four weeks. To think he’s the same man who was pale and weak in that hospital bed blows my mind—he looks so different now.
Maybe it was the fright. I remember how our dad changed after his heart attack. Jason’s seen the long-term effects with me, too, as our dad slowly slipped back into old habits and then suffered debilitating strokes. Four weeks and he’s become a health nut.
Jason and Sarah are waiting downstairs in the car. I’ve scoured the rental several times already to make sure nothing’s been missed, but I want to give it one more pass. I found one of Nolan’s bags the last time, a few sweaters and the box I gave her tucked inside. I’ve been so tempted to look inside, but those thoughts are personal. I’m sure she added more worries after Jason gave away the news about Dallas, too.
I haven’t signed anything. They’ve been understanding because of my brother’s situation, but tomorrow—at home—a decision needs to be made. I want Nolan to make it. I know it isn’t fair, but I just can’t.
Satisfied that I’ve snagged everything left behind, including one of my charging cords, I shut the door, lock it, and drop the key into the small metal box for the Airbnb owner. This house served us well for the last month.
I slide into the front seat with our driver and leave Sarah and Jason to the back.
“What asshole thought it was a good idea to book a flight this early?” Sarah gripes from the backseat. The frightened woman from a month ago is long gone. The sass is back, along with her mouth.
“Hey, it was this or six layovers and four times the price,” I say from the front seat.
I feel the driver’s eyes shift to me. I lift my hand and smile with a nod.
“Hi, how ya doin’?” I say. He recognizes me, and he probably thinks I’m being cheap and should just have a jet at my disposal. He’s fucking clueless about the jet, but yeah…I’m cheap.
“There are not six layovers for any flight anywhere, cheap-ass,” Sarah groans. Our driver laughs and turns his face from me to hide it.
“You’re lucky I didn’t book us on a prop plane,” I say, turning to glance at my future sister-in-law over my shoulder.
“Reed, we’re lucky you didn’t hire a crop duster,” she says, this time Jason laughing hard.
“Shut up.” I roll my eyes, but I laugh silently. She’s right. I would have considered it.
We get to the airport in minutes, and after clearing security, we make it to the gate just as people are starting to board. Seats were limited, so I got Jason and Sarah together near the front. I got the last spot, in the middle in the back, by the bathroom. She won’t notice, and I’m tempted to snap a photo to show her what a good guy I am, but I decide Sarah’s been through enough. I let her be grumpy about this trip home.
I’m between two women, both of them dressed in business suits with laptops waiting to be fired up once the pilot gives the all clear. They don’t seem to care who I am, just that I take up a little too much room on the armrests. I tuck my elbows in as much as I can and thank God it’s a two-and-a-half-hour flight.
I kick Nolan’s bag deeper under the se
at, and my toe rests on the hard surface of the box. I close my eyes through takeoff and try to think about anything but Dallas and the wooden container next to my foot. I pull the magazine from the seat pocket when I can’t seem to keep my eyes closed, and the cover story about things to do in Dallas makes me laugh.
“Of course,” I breathe out, dropping the magazine back into the sleeve and catching odd glances from my seat mates on either side.
I try to stare straight ahead for a while, not wanting to look over the woman to my left so I can watch clouds out the window and not wanting to appear nosey to the woman on my right, her laptop turned slightly away from me as if she’s hiding some erotic novel she’s writing.
My eyes keep going to my feet, to the box I know is buried in that duffel bag, to the words written on papers inside. I finally give in and pull the bag between my feet, unzip it and bring the box to my lap. I run my thumbs over the wood a few times, flirting with the latch until I finally open it and push the lid back.
The box isn’t overflowing, which gives me a twisted sense of relief. I convince myself that she must not hate the idea of me playing that much…she would have filled this box to the top if she did. Guilt seeps into my chest next, so I slap it closed again, but not before one torn paper flutters out from the top. I catch it as it slides down my leg, static clinging it to my jeans at my knee.
I cup it in my hand, feeling where it’s folded. It’s like I’m holding a fortune from a stale cookie—one I’m not so sure I really want to read. The box in my lap, I run my other palm over my mouth as I stare at the curled paper that looks to have been torn from a magazine. I can see the page number and the word HEALTH printed along the edge.
She probably ripped this one off at the hospital.
My stomach tightens. My thumb runs along the edge of the box, my nail feeling the seam where the lid meets the rest of the wood. This box was my dumb idea. Serves me right.
I scrunch my eyes tight and hunt for inner willpower to act either way—to just make a damn decision. The irony is that decisions are the very center of my problem and my fear of this box.
My gaze fades into the seat back in front of me while my fingers work together to flatten out the paper. When I feel it open, my pulse ratchets up hitting a deafening thump within my chest when I dip my chin and look down at the words written in black pen in Nolan’s handwriting.
I WISH YOU KNEW HOW PROUD I WAS OF YOU.
I stare at it for several minutes, trying to connect it to something—an argument we had, something I did. It’s just a bunch of words that I can’t fathom she means, but also know she does. Why would she write this?
We never fought about the Dallas topic while she was here. We barely brought it up other than her telling me to think it through and do what I thought was best and what made me happy. I quit broaching the topic, because I knew her answer would always be the same. I figured we wouldn’t talk about it again until I made a choice, and then we’d probably talk about it a lot.
She wrote this when we were visiting Jason at the hospital, on some random morning or afternoon. I didn’t see when, but she was so compelled to put this thought down that it’s more meaningful than most.
Guilt crawls into my veins and my heart rate fires up again. I instantly feel like the women next to me must know the horrible trust I broke. I look to my periphery, my flannel shirt suddenly way too warm. Neither of them is looking at me, busy in their own words, so I crack the box open enough to slide the note in, then shut it, clutching it in my palms with every intention of putting it back in Nolan’s bag and forgetting I ever saw anything.
Only I did. And I can’t stop now.
In a breath, I’m in the box again, first pulling out a small stack of folded papers to read one at a time.
YOU HAVE A HUGE HEART.
YOU’RE FUNNIER THAN MOST MEN.
YOU THINK IT WAS YOUR LEGS AND ARMS, BUT IT WAS YOUR EYES I SAW FIRST.
I BRAGGED TO GIRLS IN GRAD SCHOOL ABOUT YOU.
YOU’RE MY QB1.
I WAS SO AFRAID TO KISS YOU, BUT YOU MADE IT OKAY…THAT FIRST TIME…IN THE POOL.
SOMETIMES I JUST OPEN UP PICTURES OF US ON MY PHONE TO FEEL HAPPY.
The next time I open the box, I leave the lid open and just start sifting. I’m like an addict in a poppy field.
YOU ARE A REALLY GOOD LAY.
I laugh at that one, knowing exactly when she wrote it.
I DON’T REALLY HATE YOUR JEEP.
OKAY, I LOVE THE STUPID JEEP.
I pull out at least five or six I LOVE YOUs and some oddly flattering ones like YOU HAVE THE BEST HAIR and I’M GLAD PEYTON LOOKS LIKE YOU.
There are at least twenty left when I read it.
One small square of paper, a folded Post-it with a little sticky left on its edge, holds the truth I needed to hear. I don’t know when she wrote it, and really, it doesn’t matter because I know just seeing it that it’s the one thing she would have written no matter what the date, what the time, and wherever we were in our lives. Amid all of these sweet nothings, she’s hidden a confession. She’s somehow reached into my chest and pulled one from me as well. She’s made everything abundantly clear.
I REALLY WANT ANOTHER BABY, AND I THINK YOU DO TOO.
I set that paper, unfolded but creased, on top of the pile I’ve stirred in the box. The words begin to grow bold and everything behind them fades. My head gets dizzy with memories of the times we tried and failed, of the time Nolan lost our first without me there to stand by her, of the times we were afraid we weren’t ready, the sleepless nights with Peyton, the high fives when she walked and said a word—touchdown!
The setbacks.
The milestones.
The ride.
The motherfucking ride.
This life, it’s hard on a marriage. It’s hard on the mind and the soul. You have to be something rare just to survive it and I did.
We did.
I shut the box and hold it in my hands, never wanting to let it go. I can’t sit still. I drive the women next to me nuts with my nervous legs, my bobbing knee that I stop and restart every time I glance at it. I’m sweating; I’m nervous.
I’m happy. I’ve never been happier in my entire life other than the two times my girls changed everything. The day Nolan said “I do” and the day Peyton cried to welcome the world.
After another torturous hour and a half on the airplane, stuffed in the very back, and third from the last to get off the plane, I catch up to my brother and Sarah. They can barely keep up with my enormous strides. They make jokes about how manic I’ve suddenly become. I want to shout everything that’s suddenly filled my heart to them—break the news. But I can’t. Nolan deserves to be there for it. She deserves to be the one I talk to first.
Our bags are the last to drop onto the return, and it’s pouring rain when we get out of the terminal and wait for the car I arranged to find us. The windows are almost impossible to see out of, gale-force winds pushing the rain sideways. The freeway is at a standstill for most of the ride, and by the time we break into the desert, the sky is a perfect swirl of cream and deep gray. It’s that kind of winter storm that brings hale to the sand hills and soaks the ground back home. I roll down my window and ignore Sarah’s protest as I breathe it in, pulling myself up enough in my seat to put my head outside and feel it pelt me with icy cold shots. It’s just like they say in that Eagles song, the smell of the desert’s earth mixed with the crisp dry air.
This is home. Where have I been? This is it. I’m here.
Home is here.
With her.
“We’re having a baby,” I say, suddenly overcome with the need to share this joy bursting out of my chest. I fall back into my seat and smile to nobody at all, experiencing the stunned silence in the backseat.
“Did you say…”
I turn to face them both.
“We’re having a baby.” My smile starts to hurt my cheeks. “You can’t say anything. And…shit…you’re gonna have to pre
tend you don’t know because Nolan is going to be hella pissed I told you without her, but I just can’t not.”
“Dude!” Sarah’s eyes light up and she looks to Jason then back to me.
My brother reaches a hand forward and I turn enough to grasp his hand in mine and hold on.
“Congratulations, man. That’s…”
“I’m done,” I say before Jason can get any deeper in the conversation.
His eyes still on mine, studying me to see just how absolutely serious I am. He chews at his cheek for a moment, working his jaw as his left eye closes just a hint.
“All right,” he says, lips tight as he nods.
He turns to Sarah and threads his hand with hers. Didn’t take him a note in a box to figure his shit out.
I can’t handle the speed the driver is moving along our driveway, the line of trees dead from winter, clawing up the sides like fingers trying to keep me from getting there—to her. I’m out of the car before it fully stops, leaving the door wide open and the bags in the back. My clothes are drenched by the time I get to the door, and I realize it’s locked and I don’t have a key. I ring the bell and start to pound like a maniac. When Nolan opens it, I rush at her, my hands on her cheeks, my lips on hers, moving her all the way back to the wall that backs the stairs.
“Miss someone?” My dad jokes from the living room, but I don’t stop kissing her. My lips caress against hers, feeling her gasp for air because I surprised her. Nolan’s hands give in quickly and hold on to my sides first before sliding up my damp T-shirt that clings to my chest to the water droplets on my jaw then into my soaking hair.
Hair she loves. Because she said so. She wrote it down.
When my breath runs out, I hold my head against hers and open my eyes just enough to see her suck in her bottom lip and let go. That sexy little pout drives me to kiss her again, to suck that lip in-between mine until I think I might just suck it raw. I hear Jason and Sarah step in behind me and pull back to let her breathe. Instead of letting go, I lift her up slowly, her long ribbons of hair spilling down to hide her face, covering us both in a private moment where she smiles down at me and I circle her around like the queen she is.