by H M Shepherd
He realized he hadn’t answered and shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. Changing the subject abruptly, he said, “Thank you for doing this, by the way. I was afraid she’d go somewhere else if I took too long getting there.”
“It was no problem. I was in the area anyway, and like you said—what if you’d missed her? And also….” She hesitated here but continued. “I wanted to talk to you, anyway.”
“What about?”
“Us. Or, I suppose, why there isn’t an us anymore.”
“Liv—”
“Nick, please. After this, we probably won’t ever see each other again, and I want to clear up some things.” She took a sip of coffee. “I guess I should make this quick—to start, I know this is going to sound like a whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, but I want you to understand that I’m being completely sincere.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“When I got pregnant, it felt like everything was locking into place. And that made me happy then. If I could go back in time and change things, and I’d be your wife and we’d have our daughter, I would in a heartbeat. But I can’t do that.”
“No. You can’t.” He wanted desperately to run, to go anywhere where he didn’t have to listen to this, but Olivia had picked her moment well. Her audience was captive.
“I was absolutely devastated when I lost her. You know that, right?”
“Yes.”
She had her hands folded on the table, and Nick could see where her thumbnail was digging into her skin. “But I was also relieved. There was so much I wanted to do that I would never get to do if I settled down and had a family, and it felt like since one door closed, I should run through the other while I had the chance.”
“I don’t understand, though. We could have still done those things.”
“I know, and taking you with me would have been a dream come true for me. The thing was, I felt incredibly guilty. Your dream was to have a family, and here I was, feeling relieved when you’d lost it in the worst way possible. When you didn’t get what you wanted. What you deserved.” She stopped there and took a sip of her coffee. “I felt like I was the worst person in the world, keeping you tied to me when I felt something so horrible.”
“Shouldn’t that have been my decision to make?”
“Maybe.” She smiled at him and laid a hand over his. He tensed at the touch but didn’t back away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I left, and I’m sorry it took me so long to articulate why.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“What for?”
“I’m not sure. For whatever stopped you from telling me this sooner, I guess. Speaking of, why now?”
“I’m leaving the country soon. I’m going to Iceland first—it was one of those things I wanted to do. Plus,” she said, taking her hand from Nick and pointing to where Ellie stood waiting for her drink, “she tells me her uncle’s sweet on you. And I know you, Nick. You’ve been blaming yourself, and I don’t want that to get in the way of what you could have. Even if it’s not him.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I mean that.”
Ellie began to walk back with her juice, and Olivia took her last chance to lean over and whisper conspiratorially in Nick’s ear, “So tell me, what’s he like? Quick!”
“He’s absolutely adorable and entirely too good for the likes of me.”
“So exactly your type, then?”
They said their goodbyes soon after, and Olivia planted a kiss on his cheek and promised Ellie a postcard from Reykjavik. Ellie and Nick decided to walk back to his car, thinking if they delayed leaving the city, they would avoid the worst of rush hour. She was silent nearly the entire way, and Nick let her be until they finally got to the parking garage.
“Do you want to tell me what this was all about?”
She looked at him balefully.
“No, I mean, do you want to? It’s okay if the answer is no.”
“Sam didn’t tell you?”
“A little, but he didn’t exactly have time to go into the whole story. Start with how you got out here—I’m really curious about that one.”
Ellie curled up, holding her legs and digging her heels into the seat beneath her. Nick didn’t have the heart to care too much; the upholstery could be cleaned easily enough. “I bought an Amtrak ticket with the money I saved up working. I just panicked and knew I had to do something or I’d explode. There’s a guy at work who likes me—I really don’t like him back, he goes on too much about how pretty he thinks mixed girls are and it kind of weirds me out—but he has a car and he wanted to do me a favor, so he drove me to the station when my shift was over.”
“That probably wasn’t the safest thing to do,” Nick said, grimacing.
“No,” Ellie agreed quietly. “But he didn’t do anything.”
“Let me know if he bothers you after this, okay?”
Ellie nodded and went on. “My mom says it’s stupid to keep Sam from adopting me. That even if she were released tomorrow, she’ll need to go to rehab and get her life in order before she can take care of me, and that’ll take a while and I probably would be eighteen or close to it. It makes sense,” she said, tears beginning to pour down her face again. She took out the tissues Olivia had given her. “But I don’t want her to give me up. And I don’t want to hurt Sam’s feelings and tell him that either.”
Nick didn’t know what to say. On one hand, Ellie’s mother was entirely correct. But on the other, telling Ellie what she already knew wasn’t going to be helpful in the slightest. “You’re feeling abandoned?”
“I guess, yeah.”
He thought about what Olivia had said. “It sucks, I know. But sometimes we get a door shut in our face for no reason at all, and you have to find another one and take it. There’s a lot of practical reasons for Sam to adopt you, but you have to find the impractical silver lining about it that would make you happy.” He glanced over at her. “Does that make any sense whatsoever?”
“Not a bit. You mixed way too many metaphors there.”
“All right. So, that woman you met? She’s my ex-fiancée, and she’s the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me. But if she hadn’t completely broken my heart, I wouldn’t have the bed-and-breakfast, or Maggie. I wouldn’t have ever met you.”
“Or Sam,” she added.
“Yeah. Or Sam.” He paused for a moment. “You told Olivia he had a crush on me?”
“He does. He’ll never admit it, though, so it probably just looks like he wants to nail you.”
“Seriously, you and that filthy mouth of yours.” That filthy, completely accurate mouth. Sam had shown little romantic interest outside of their one quick liaison, and Nick had assumed Sam was done with him, or even worse, had regretted it. Maybe not.
“Were you hoping to get back with your ex? I’m sorry if I ruined that.”
“Oh God, no. No, you didn’t ruin anything.” He finally hit a long stretch of empty road and pressed down on the gas in spite of himself. “But when you’re done groveling at your uncle’s feet, he and I are going to have a chat.”
Ellie smiled. “That would be a pretty awesome silver lining.”
WHEN NICK finally got Ellie home, Sam was exactly where he pictured he’d be, pacing across his front yard, his nails bitten down to the quick and his short hair sticking up in tufts where he’d pulled at it. Ellie didn’t even make it out of the car before he had her in a bear hug, telling her to never, ever do anything like this ever again. She began to apologize, but he told her to save it for the morning.
“Go to bed,” he told her. “You look like you’ll fall asleep on your feet.”
That she obeyed without comment told Nick everything he needed to know about how contrite she really felt.
“Thank you for doing this,” Sam said as soon as they were alone.
“Ellie told me a little more about what set this off. If you’d like, I can get you in touch with my mother. I don’t know if she could take a case this far out�
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“Listen, I’m really tired,” Sam interrupted, rocking back on his heels toward the door.
“Of course! But when you’re feeling better, I’d really like to talk to you about something. Do you have time tom—”
“Is it about Ellie or the house?”
“No, I—”
“Then I don’t think it’s anything we need to talk about.”
Nick was taken aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Good night.”
Nick tried to protest, but Sam ignored him and went inside, shutting the door behind him with curt finality.
For a moment Nick stood there, frozen in confusion. He wanted to yell, to throw himself at the door and beat at it with both fists until Sam had no choice but to come back out just to get him to shut up. Then Nick could ask—no, demand—to know what exactly he had done to deserve to be treated so coldly by someone who was at the very least infatuated with him. Even that aside, at the bare minimum, Nick was the man who had returned Sam’s runaway niece; not that Nick was expecting gold stars and a parade for it, but some measure of common courtesy wouldn’t have been uncalled for.
But all that would likely achieve would be to piss off Sam and upset Ellie. Nick chose instead to quietly go home and make a fuss at a better time. He left his car in their driveway and headed across the street in the dark, following the porch light that had been left on at the caretaker’s cottage.
He made it up the first step when a hand reached out and grabbed his upper arm. Nick’s heart leapt into his throat with a shout until he turned around and saw Sam.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore, and Sam let go. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“I’m sorry. I just—I didn’t want to leave it at that. It’s not fair to you.”
“Care to tell me what the hell your problem is, then?” Nick said acerbically and immediately felt guilty for lashing out as Sam flinched.
Sam bit his lip. With some difficulty and a few false starts, he settled on where to begin. “Your friend, the photographer. She said you were leaving. Moving to Pittsburgh. She even brought you some magazines for apartments—I left them on your kitchen table.”
“And that made you angry?”
“Yes,” Sam whispered. He looked down, but Nick could still see how his face had turned bright red.
Nick said nothing. It was a trick he’d learned early on in his career. Most people couldn’t stand the silence and would begin to babble, usually saying more than they meant to, which made it useful when it came to questioning defendants during depositions. Sam, however—stoic, quiet, and utterly Dutch Sam—was proving a bit more difficult to break, so Nick prompted, “Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to go,” Sam bit out with difficulty. “And because I can’t ask you to stay.”
“…You could, you know.”
Sam shook his head vehemently. “No, I couldn’t. Not while I have Ellie. The state couldn’t take her away from me because I’m dating another man, but if they wanted, they could look until they find another reason. I’ve given them plenty so far.”
“I don’t think—”
“They might, and I can’t take that risk. Look how everything went during the last election.” Sam continued with a bitter laugh, “You know that old joke, about Pennsylvania? Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other?”
“And Alabama in between. Yeah, I know.”
“Unless Ellie agrees to the adoption, I can’t do anything until she’s eighteen. It’s one of the reasons Sarah—my sister—wants me to have legal custody. She said that Ellie told her that I liked you—”
“Jesus Christ, does she just tell that to everyone?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Sam let out a small laugh and shook his head. “Anyway, she said it wasn’t fair to me to have to put my life on hold until Ellie’s an adult. I said I’d only be twenty-eight then and I’d have plenty of time, but she told me that she of all people should know how little time a person could have. But that said, I won’t force Ellie into it if she doesn’t want to.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Nick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Three years isn’t a long time, you know.”
Sam didn’t answer right away, and Nick thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard him. “What?”
“Not even three years. She’s turning sixteen next month, right?”
Sam nodded.
“All right, then. I can wait.”
“But… but what about Pittsburgh?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Sam stared at him with surprise.
“Diana misunderstood. The magazines are for my sister—she’s getting married next year, and she’s trying to convince her fiancé to move to Pittsburgh.”
“But she said you were homesick. That you have been since college, and that you were always planning to go back.”
“I am a little, yeah, but I like it here. And plans change. When I was ten, I wanted to be an astronaut, and when I was twenty, I wanted to stay in Pittsburgh forever. Now I just want to run my bed-and-breakfast and stay put for a while. Plus, I have a ton of things I need to do before I think about going anywhere else.”
“Like what?”
“Like telling you I’m sorry for doing everything backward. Like charming you into giving me another chance. Like taking you out to a candlelit dinner and kissing you as many times as you’ll let me. Like asking you to date me.” He reached out and took Sam by the wrist. “I can’t do that if I’m in Pittsburgh and you’re here.”
Sam bit his lip again and pulled his wrist away, leaving Nick terrified he was about to get a no. But Sam only slid his hand down to lace his fingers with Nick’s and hold on tight. “I can’t ask you to wait like that.”
“You don’t have to ask. I’ll wait anyway.” Nick looked down from the step above and took Sam’s face in his hands. “If she doesn’t want the adoption, that’s fine. I’ll be here on her eighteenth birthday. Just come find me and I’ll take you out on our first date.” And then he kissed Sam long and hard, as if he could seal that promise between their lips.
NOVEMBER
NICK’S BED-AND-BREAKFAST had been open for just over a month but already had a fairly steady stream of guests. Out-of-towners flocked for the chance to see the Pennsylvania Dutch country in full autumn glory, and cash-strapped locals liked having somewhere relatively inexpensive nearby to take small vacations.
It had taken until the day he had to order the signage and stationery to settle on a name. He’d been up until midnight the night before racking his brain and couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t sound generic or stupid. He’d flirted with the idea of giving it his own last name, but thought an Italian name for a business set in an old German farmhouse was ill-fitting. Finally he remembered what Sam had said about the hex sign Mrs. Lapp had given him, which now had a place of honor right beside the front door: “Just for nice.”
“What does that mean, anyway?” he asked as soon as he remembered to.
“Just for fun. Impractical but fancy.”
And Nick immediately went off to order a large wooden sign with “Just for Nice” written in Fraktur. Sam had helped him drive in the post at the end of the walkway after it arrived. He, Nick, and Ellie all traced their initials into the concrete before it set and Nick could officially hang the sign from the crossbar.
He and Sam had taken baby steps when it came to their relationship. About a week after running away, Ellie had come to Sam with a deal: she would agree to the adoption as soon as Sam took her to see a therapist. Finding one had been a bit difficult, and Nick eventually called his mother to ask for her recommendation. She gave it readily, and once she got Nick to tell the entire story, she took it upon herself to research everything about the county’s adoption laws and was prepared to take on anyone attempting to make Sam out to be an unfit guardian.
It tu
rned out that she wasn’t needed in the latter capacity, as the adoption had gone through without a hassle, but she had still gone to the courthouse in Reading the day the papers were signed. She gave Sam a once-over, patted Nick on the back, and declared, “You could do worse.” Nick protested, ready to defend Sam, when she clarified, “I wasn’t talking to you, dear.”
That night Nick had taken Sam and Ellie out for dinner to celebrate, pointedly telling Sam that this didn’t count as a date. They had decided they would wait the prerequisite three dates before taking their relationship any further—“To do things properly,” Nick said—but between the adoption, the new business, and Sam’s job, they’d only managed two. One had only happened because they needed to go to the grocery store and went out to a diner first to avoid shopping hungry. So they’d taken to asking each other “Does this count?” as a joke after every single activity they did together. Even if the answers had all been yes (and they would have had to be on number fifty, bare minimum), they still wouldn’t have had any time to do anything with each other, carnal or otherwise. Nick had begged Sam to take the job as a full-time maintenance worker/repairman for the bed-and-breakfast, if only just to free up his time traveling to and from work sites, but Sam refused. He did, however, happily take up Nick’s offer to use one of the sheds as a woodshop, and as his commission list grew, he found himself having to take fewer and fewer jobs from his contractor.
It wasn’t until they were shut up in the barn, trying to decide if they could turn it into an event space, that they finally decided that it definitely counted. Without a word between them, Sam had used a pocket knife to cut the cord on a hay bale and then proceeded to screw Nick senseless on top of it. They could have stayed there for hours, holding each other in the dark and quiet, but it got to be too cold and they had to clean up before anyone came looking for them.
“This would have been so much easier if I’d just left it baled,” Sam complained as he took another armful of straw out of the barn.