Page 83 of It's a Love Story

“Do it,” I say.

He reaches out and takes a photo of our sheepishly happy faces. We look like we’re embarrassed to be this happy. He sends it to the group text called “The Mob.” There are ten people on it—his parents, his brothers, their wives. He texts: all okay now.

And we watch as his phone blows up.

Aidan: OH THANK GOD

Brian: Knew it

Connor: The day the crying stopped!

Cormack: Don’t feck this up young man

Marla: Bring her for Thanksgiving

Reenie: Danny, you look so happy!

At that, he puts his phone down. “This could go on for a while.” I put my head on his shoulder, and he wraps me tighter in his arms. I want to talk to him about the movie we need to figure out how to make. I want to tell him about Kay and her husband’s ugly bowling shirt. But I like the way our breathing synchronizes in this silence. I like focusing all of my attention on the spot where my forehead rests on his neck. So we sit like this in silence and watch the world go by on Montana Avenue.

Clem comes home and finds us like this. “Is this . . . ?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Finally. Hi, Dan.” She drops her bag on the porch and waits for us to scoot over. She wedges into the empty space. “We might need a bigger swing.”

“I’ll put it on my list,” I say.

We sit and swing for a few beats. I know Clem has ten thousand things to say to Dan, and I’m wondering where she’ll start.

“So the whole billboard thing went well?” she says finally.

Dan laughs. “In the end, yes.”

“I want to take credit for it because it was really inspired. But I just told her to go to your building and bang on doors. I’m not an artist.” Clem gets up and sits on the porch railing so she can see us together.

“So you’re a nurse and a bartender?” Dan says.

“Yes, full service,” she says, and he laughs.

My phone rings on the kitchen counter, and I get up to get it. I like the way the two of them look sitting on my porch, like everything I need is in one place. I picture Dan living here with us, and I want to follow that daydream to its full completion, but my phone is ringing.

It’s Barry Nielson, my old agent, returning my call. “Good call, Janey. That NDA expired five years ago.”

“Okay then,” I say. “Go ahead and spill it.”

CHAPTER 38

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER

MOSTDAYSDANANDIARGUEALLTHEWAYTOTHEset, and most days we hold hands all the way back. There’s a rhythm to it that I like. We wake up; we drink coffee on my porch. I eat a Pop-Tart, and he gives me a hard time about it. Clem sides with Dan, though she’s not around as much as she used to be. She’s met a guy named Whit, and Dan and I like to say that together their names sound like a bunch of people clearing their throats.

We think we’re hilarious.

In a sure sign of the apocalypse, my mom and I invited Dan and Gary to Friday movie night with us. It was her idea, an effort we could make to open our circle and let love all the way in. This happened just the one time. Gary finishes his popcorn before the previews are over. Dan likes to sit in the back row. One of them pulled out a pack of Twizzlers, and I almost walked out before the movie even started. Some things are sacred, carved so deep in our hearts that they need to be preserved as they are. I am a card-carrying member of the true-love society now, but only six nights a week.

My mom has moved on from the smoky eye to a full range of pastel shadows. We go back to the house she shares with Gary now, and I stay with her later because we have so much more to talk about. We’re both in love, yes, but also we’re honest about it. She doesn’t feel the need to go on and on about what a gem Gary is; she can share what’s not perfect. I tell her about the set of house keys I gave Dan that he lost an hour later hanging off the pier to photograph a pod of whales. I appreciate her in a new way, how hurt she must have been by my dad and how hard she worked to make it okay for me. We both have a new way of living, and our Friday night check-ins matter more than ever.

There is so much laughter in my house and in my life. Not always sidesplitting, snot-making laughter, but sometimes just this light feeling that something good and true could happen at any moment. I look forward to everything. Interestingly, I no longer laugh while I sleep; I actually sleep like the dead. Curled up inside Dan, his arm over mine in that way that seems both ordinary and like a miracle. My funny dreams are happening out where people can see them now.

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