Before Girl

by Kate Canterbary

"Not great." I dropped my head back, stared up at the ceiling. "What about that stabbing? Did you pull that one out of the fire?"

  "Just barely," he replied.

  I shoved my phone in my pocket. "Better than not."

  The door swung open and Acevedo stepped through, his surgical gown billowing around him. "Come on, losers," he yelled, slapping his hand against the doorframe. "We're going running."

  "I don't run," Stremmel groused. "Not intentionally."

  "It's a good thing I'm not giving you a choice," Acevedo replied. "Let's go. Up. Both of you. I can't take all this pissing and moaning."

  "The beatings will continue until morale improves?" Stremmel asked.

  Acevedo waved him off. "Sweat is the solution to many things."

  I pulled my phone out again, glared at it when I found no new messages. Nothing in the past minute. "Sweating isn't saving the day."

  "This? From you?" Acevedo cried. "If there's anything you believe in, it's a good, long run. What happened to you, Hartshorn?"

  "Lost myself looking after an asset," I said, mostly to myself. Then, louder, "Yeah. All right. Let's hit the pavement."

  Acevedo brought his hands together in a loud clap, saying, "Yes. That's what I'm talking about." He pointed his clasped hands at me. "I'm giving you ten minutes to suit up and meet me across the street. We'll start at the park and follow the Charles into Cambridge and back around again. Ten miles. Twelve if we push it."

  "That sounds like a death march," Stremmel grumbled. "No offense but I'm going to accidentally forget to meet you there."

  "God help me, Stremmel, you're running," Acevedo replied. "You need to burn off some of your bitter."

  Stremmel banged his locker shut and turned a well-practiced glare toward the neurosurgeon. "I've tried that. Burning, drowning, strangling. Every way you can kill a witch, I've tried it."

  I headed toward the door, beckoning for Stremmel to join me. "It's no use," I said. "We're doing this. If we're lucky, we'll be too tired to be miserable later."

  He followed but asked Acevedo, "Where is your wife? You wouldn't be doling out corporal punishment if that spitfire was at home."

  "And how long is she gone?" I asked.

  "New York," he replied. "Lucky for you two, she gets home tomorrow afternoon."

  Stremmel nudged me with his elbow. "These motherfucking married people," he grumbled.

  I tried to protest. To offer another explanation for Acevedo and his exuberant concern for dragging us out of our foul moods. But I didn't have it in me this time. I wasn't sure I had much of anything left in me.

  I wasn't certain but it seemed like Acevedo ran us all the way to the state border and back.

  This was a perfect night for it, light until nearly eight o'clock, clear skies, warm but not humid. And everyone was out. If Stella and I hadn't fallen apart—or whatever happened—we would've been relishing in summer's arrival and following the path along the river with everyone else tonight. We would've walked and talked, and she would've bought an ice cream cone or two and I would've watched her eat them.

  But Stella wasn't here and Acevedo taunted us better than a drill sergeant. After two months with little more than brisk walking as training, every mile felt like five. And Acevedo was right about the sweat doing us good. Or doing me good. Stremmel muttered something about moving back to Los Angeles if anyone conscripted him into another half marathon.

  As I shuffled toward my apartment, my shirt soaked through and my muscles numb, I cursed Acevedo for plotting a course that forced me to think about Stella. But then another thought niggled loose. What if it wasn't Acevedo's fault? What if everything in this damn world reminded me of Stella? Even the street outside my apartment was built on interactions with her. I didn't want to move but I couldn't manage sucker punches like this one on a regular basis.

  And dammit, it smelled like her. Not her hair or her skin but things I'd come to associate with her. Spice and garlic and herbs. It wasn't the typical cauldron of city scents. No, it was like an apparition, one rising from my building and leading me into temptation.

  That was, if composing and deleting texts while watching the baseball game on mute to save me from imagining the way Stella would call the plays constituted temptation. It probably qualified as self-destruction or at least a healthy dose of mental torture.

  Stremmel led the way into our building and said nothing more than a chant of "Fuck" as he climbed the stairs to his third-floor apartment. I waved to him as I unlocked my door, tried to ignore the rich, heavy aroma around me. It was my imagination, I was positive. Scent imprinted itself on memory and I'd never forget the night Stella came to me when I was sick, all fierce and defiant about chicken soup.

  I laughed at that as I opened the door. Stella wasn't chicken soup. She wasn't the standard option. She was surprising and a bit strange. Unexpected in every way. She was complicated too. Her history was loaded with disappointments and she distanced herself with sweetness and smiles, using that warmth as a shield to keep everyone at an arm's length.

  And she was here, in my apartment.

  I leaned against the doorway into the kitchen, a little dizzy, a little dazed, my muscles pushed past the point of fatigue and still aching in the places where I broke for her. I wanted to stand here, wanted to stare as she chopped vegetables and force my brain to confirm this as reality. But my body wasn't sure about staying upright. I had to brace my hands on either side of the door to keep from sliding to the floor.

  After seven or eight hours of me gazing at her, unblinking, she peeked over at me. Offered a small smile, no dimples. "Hi."

  "Hi," I replied.

  "Riley let me in. I hope that's all right," she continued. "I'm making some sauce."

  I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say or how to say it because I knew I'd launch into a big, awkward speech that would invariably include another proposal of marriage and a dozen other things best kept to myself.

  "Okay," she said, mostly to herself. "Food is—I don't know how to put this—food is about people. You know? It's not basic nutrition. It's tradition and family and giving something to the people you care about."

  She was so beautiful it hurt. More than everything else already hurt. This was another ache, on top of all the others. She wore a dark purple dress and those pretty yellow shoes, and she had her hair tied in a ponytail. Nothing about her appearance was remarkable. She wasn't trying to win me over with an epic display of tits and ass, or piled on layers of seductive makeup.

  She looked like she just came from a long day at work and she was perfect. Her eyes appeared tired and her shoulders were tense and I loved her. I loved her and she came for me and that was all I needed to know.

  "Maybe that's not your experience," she continued. "But it's mine. For me, food is family. It's spicy peppers and sausage when you're sick and Funfetti cupcakes on Serina's birthday and it's lasagna when I've fucked up so bad the only answer is cheese and extra sauce on the side. It's intertwined in a way I'll never be able to unravel. I tried unraveling it last night. I was in a car for three hours and spent most of that time—"

  "Why were you in a car for three hours last night?" I asked.

  She swung her gaze toward me, her fingers still curled around the handle of a knife. It was clear she hadn't planned for an interruption at this point in her speech. "I was in Connecticut. At ESPN."

  I shrugged. Nodded. Motioned for her to continue. When she didn't, I said, "I want to hear the rest of this. You can tell me about ESPN later."

  "Later?" she echoed.

  Ah. Now I got it. Since I couldn't manage more than a flat stare and had myself braced in the most aggressive position possible with my arms straight out and hands holding up the walls, she thought I wasn't happy to see her. "Yeah. Later."

  After a blink, she turned back to her vegetables picking up where she'd left off. "On the drive back here, I tried to figure out how I care for people. What is it I do to express that?"

  It was a rheto
rical question, one she wasn't interested in me answering. But I could spend all night ticking off the ways she did it.

  "And it occurred to me that I communicate for a living," she said with a rueful laugh. "I'm all about the right words in the right way at the right time. But here I am, wondering how to show someone I care about him. That I care about him—about you—more than anyone else." She set the knife down, shifted to face me. "I've never had the right words for you. Never in the right ways. Definitely not at the right times." She rolled her gaze to the side, twisted her fingers together. "I'm trying to get better at the words but until then, I'm here. I'm cooking. For you."

  She motioned toward the pots on the stove. I hadn't noticed them until now. Honestly, she could've torn down the walls and put my furniture in storage and I wouldn't have noticed because the only thing I could see was Stella. Nothing else existed for me.

  "But I don't do this too often. I don't cook for anyone but myself, not much," she continued. "Food is family to me. It's special and personal and—and I've never done this. Not for anyone else." She lifted her fingertips to her forehead for a moment. "I have my sisters and my parents. Maybe Flinn and Tatum. It depends on the day with them. But no one else. There is no one else, Cal. It's only you."

  A rough breath whooshed past my lips but I offered no additional response. I needed to replay her words, listen to them back one more time before I believed them.

  Stella glanced back to the stovetop, speaking as she stirred. "I didn't have the right words for you. I'd felt it all along. God, that first morning on the trail. At the coffee shop. I'd felt everything but I didn't want to let myself feel it. No matter how many times I swore I wasn't broken, I was still afraid. Afraid of being forgotten again. And I didn't know how to be scared and vulnerable out loud. Not when I'd worked my ass off to bury it along with the rest of my baby adulthood. I didn't have any of the words, Cal, and I'm not sure I have them now. Instead of trying to make sense of it all, I'm cooking for you. I only cook for my family and you're going to be my family." She looked up, met my gaze. "If you still want that. If you'll belong to me."

  Those statements, they knocked me back a step. I pushed away from the door and walked a slow circuit around my apartment. I needed a minute to gather her words, swallow them down. When I returned to the kitchen, I said, "Isn't there a game tonight?" I shot a pointed glance at the television and Stella's phone on the countertop. "Why aren't you watching?"

  "The balls can wait," she replied. "They won't always be able to wait but they're waiting now. I have a lasagna to prepare and some more words to struggle through, and those are my priorities at the moment." She looked away from the stove, studying the floor for a beat. "If you're okay with that."

  "With the lasagna?" I asked. "Or you struggling through words?"

  She lifted her shoulders. "How about both?"

  I bobbed my head, felt a smile tugging at my lips for the first time in forever. "Do I get the crispy corner piece?" I asked.

  "Honey, you get all the corners," she replied.

  "I don't want it that way, Stel." I advanced toward her, my hand outstretched. "If I can't share them with you, I don't want them. I don't want anything if I can't have it with you."

  A strangled laugh-sob stuck in her throat as she closed the distance between us. "Okay," she whispered, knuckling away a few tears. "We'll share."

  I wanted to sweep her into my arms and press her up against a wall and get my hand under that dress. Just to feel her. All I needed was thirty seconds and I'd be there, my skin against hers and the world sliding back to rights. But then I remembered my sweat-soaked t-shirt…and everything else sweat-soaked. "Not to end this before it starts, but I need to shower. I ran several hundred miles and I'm gross. Nothing about my appearance is acceptable."

  She stepped back, looked me up and down, and belted out a laugh. "Oh my god, yes. You are completely filthy, Cal." She frowned at the mud caked to my shoes and splattered over my legs. "Where have you been?"

  "Vermont, maybe," I replied with a shrug. "Acevedo likes inventing his own trails."

  "Go. Wash." She pointed toward the bathroom. "The sauce needs a little more time."

  I reached for her hand, closed it in both of mine. "I'm sorry."

  Her eyelids drooped, her shoulders rising and falling as she exhaled. "You don't need to say that. You did nothing wrong and I—"

  "We made plenty of mistakes. Both of us." I stroked my thumb over her knuckles, offered a small smile. "We'll talk about it when I'm not covered in trail funk, okay?"

  Stella nodded, repeating, "Go. Wash." And then, "I'll be here when you're finished. I'm not going anywhere."

  I knew hearts didn't swell, not outside cardiomegaly. I knew hearts only seemed to lodge in one's throat and only while experiencing severe palpitations. I knew the organ's every corner and flutter. And I knew love didn't live in the heart, didn't start there and didn't grow there.

  But I knew Stella owned mine.

  I was under the shower's hot spray no more than two minutes before Stella threw back the curtain and joined me. She said nothing, asked nothing, only stepped inside and wrapped her soft around my hard.

  She rested her head between my shoulder blades, clasped her arms over my torso. I layered my hands over hers. We stayed there, twined together as the water pounded down on us and the steam rose.

  Eventually, she said, "I want us to be the people who collided at the pond. I want us to be open and honest and not afraid of a single thing. Except demented raccoons."

  "It was a beaver."

  She groaned her disagreement into my skin. Then, "I want us to be the people we were that morning. When we shared that scone and almost agreed to forever because—because it felt right."

  I turned, took her into my arms, tucked her head under my chin. "I am sorry and you do deserve an apology." When she started to object, I cupped her chin and pressed my thumb to her lips. "The way I left, it wasn't right."

  "I would've done the same thing," she mumbled against my thumb.

  "You told me how it was," I continued, using that thumb to trace her plump lips. "I knew and I didn't have the stones to tell you I didn't like it."

  "And I didn't have the big girl panties to end it with them," she added. "I need you to believe me when I say you're the only one, Cal. Even before that day with the crazy raccoon—"

  "Beaver," I said under my breath. "It was a beaver, Stel."

  "—I hadn't seen any of them for weeks. You were the only one then and you're the only one now." She glanced up at me, her cheeks wet. "My phone is unlocked and you can read anything you want at any time and it wasn't a beaver—"

  I kissed her. I dragged my hands across her shoulders, down the line of her spine, over her ass cheeks. Squeezed them both. I ran my knuckles between her legs but only for a quick moment. She responded with a gasp, a thin, breathy sound that went straight to my cock. I didn't think I had an ounce of energy left after the overexertion of this evening but somehow my body was ready to demolish this woman.

  My woman.

  "You're mine," I whispered against her lips. "You belong to me, Stella."

  She pushed up on her toes, caught my lower lip between her teeth. Nipped, hummed, turned my cock to stone. "You belong to me."

  I reached for her breasts, covered her nipples with my thumbs. "We're not doing this here," I announced. "The water will run cold and your skin will shrivel before I'm done with you tonight. And don't think I'm stopping with one night. You still need to marry me." I bent down, closed my teeth around the underside of her breast and then delivered the same treatment to the other side. "Yes?"

  Stella stared at me, her lips parted. "Yes," she answered. "And yes."

  Epilogue

  Stella

  I said yes but we waited a year to say I do.

  There was a hot second when eloping sounded awesome but then we realized we didn't want to rush this part. We had the rest of our lives to be married.

  But there
was one thing we rushed. One precious, little thing we were keeping to ourselves until after returning from the honeymoon.

  And that was why Cal was slumped back in the passenger seat while I drove us home after my thirty-seventh birthday dinner. Since we wanted to keep my pregnancy quiet until after the wedding next month, Cal covered for me by drinking my wine. And his.

  He was just smooth enough to pull that ruse off and get totally hammered in the process.

  He tipped his chin up, a sloppy smile warming his face. "How are you doing, sweet thing?"

  "I'm good," I replied, a laugh thick in my words. "I'm really good."

  "Feeling all right?" he asked.

  "I am," I said. "I'm tired but I'm all right. It was a good day."

  I'd worried about making it through the meal without setting off suspicions. Since peeing on the stick last month, my appetite had vanished. All I wanted was toasted cinnamon raisin bagels or corn flakes with almond milk. Nothing else interested me. But I'd tolerated Mom's cooking well enough. She sent us home with leftovers to last the week and a Dominican cake with pineapple filling she'd whipped up just for me.

  That smile of his, it was sloppy as ever. "You're fucking beautiful."

  "I appreciate you saying so. Especially since I've been a bit gray and wobbly and—"

  "And fucking beautiful," he said, catching a lock of my hair between two fingers. "I'm not putting up with any of this gray and wobbly bullshit, Stel. You've never been more amazing than you are right now."

  I loved him. Like, crazy, wild, boundless love. There was no structure to it, no routine. And the heat of his adoration, it was everything. It was a light that never went out. I didn't know I could love someone else this way. Didn't know I could open myself to the kind of vulnerability that came with giving and receiving love.

  But Cal made it easy. He made it worth the risk and all the uncertainty.

  And he guzzled wine to keep my parents from noticing I wasn't drinking on my birthday.