Page 50 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

Brit’s weight lifted off of me, then I felt the heat of her wrapped around my lower back as she straddled me. It was a silent cue to keep talking, but I didn’t take it. Not at first.

But when she leaned forward and pressed her cheek to my back, I couldn’t find a single excuse I wanted to use. “The day Alex died, he asked me to go snowboarding with him. We’d had a storm the night before and he was in my office being a pain in the ass about it, talking about how great the powder was and giving me hisseize the momentcrap, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Janessa had just broken up with me for bailing on plans with her for the hundredth time, we had sales closing thathewas supposed to handle. I was so damn tired of it and I . . .”

“You what, Nicky?”

Part of me wished I’d never started this conversation with her. Another part of me wanted to go further back, to tell her how angry I’d been when my father gave him that job in the first place. He never wanted to run the company. Alex. He never took it seriously. I was the one who worked every summer building houses with my uncles. I double-majored in business and construction management. I put myself through grad school so I could do things with this company that my dad and uncles never had the drive to. It was my life. And my dad gave it to Alex and he treated it like a hobby he could pick up and put down whenever he wanted.

“I said some things.” I blew out a breath and closed my eyes. “I told him it should have been me who Dad put in charge of the company. I told him he didn’t deserve it. He smiled at me in that infuriating way he had, like he had the world figured out and he was just waiting for you to catch up. He smiled like that and he said, ‘We both know it’ll be yours soon enough, Nick.’

“And then he went snowboarding by himself and I stayed in my office and sulked. His heart finally gave out on the mountain and that was the last time I ever saw him.”

“Nick.” Brit’s fingers curled into my T-shirt.

“I should have gone with him.”

“It couldn’t have changed anything.”

“No. But I could have made sure the last thing I said to him wasn’tthat.”

She was silent for a while and even though I could practically hear her combing through everything I’d just confessed, it didn’t feel like the judgment I was expecting.

“Why are you here, Nick?” she finally asked. “On this trip?”

I rolled over and she laid down beside me in the grass. And then for some reason, even after everything I’d just confessed, I lied about this. I didn’t tell her about the ashes and Alex’s letter. Maybe because if I told her, she would have been a part of it. I liked that I had this little flicker of bright light in her, completely separate from the task I was failing and the pressure to get home. Like at the airport bar when she’d made me feel normal for a few hours over beers. I wanted to keep that.

“I just needed to get away,” I said.

And I’ve been sailing around the world and it didn’t feel like getting away at all until I met you.

I knew she didn’t believe me, but she let it go anyway. My limbs felt heavy and my eyes burned. I rubbed my fists into them. This conversation was taking all of my energy, and after what little sleep either of us had had, I didn’t have much to spare. I felt drained and hollow and like I might even let Brit drive the Rover when we were done here because my head was a mess.

“Nicky.” She scooted over until her body was pressed next to mine and even through the exhaustion, my skin reacted to her, heating. “How about I promise to tone it down a little, not jump off of any more bars or spike any more candy, and you promise to try to let go of some of this stress? Just for a little while, Nick. There is nothing you can do for anyone right now. Let yourself off the hook.”

Silence lingered, the sound of kids laughing weaving in and out of the air between us while I imagined what that might be like—just accepting my circumstance, letting it go. I rolled toward her and laid my head on her shoulder, pressing my cheek against her warm, bare skin. I probably shouldn’t have. I was probably too heavy, but she held me and I let her. I fucking let her because she was right, what she said at the bar. I did want to enjoy this. Not this painful confession she’d pulled from me, but everything else. I wanted to enjoyherbut I didn’t know how. “Brit?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t tone yourself down.”

I felt her shiver beneath my cheek and she squeezed me. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

It was pouring with rain when we pulled into the train station in Savannah, big blooming thunderheads darkening the sky, but inside my heart was clear and glowing.

After our conversation in the park, Nick had fallen asleep for almost forty-five minutes, his head on my shoulder, our backs in the grass. I laid there, listening to his quiet puffs of breath, thinking how the things he’d just shared with me were more intimate than anything we could have done last night in that bed. When I’d finally nudged him awake so we wouldn’t miss the train, he’d sat up and rubbed roughly at his eyes, wincing in what I assumed was more guilt for taking those few moments for himself, but it felt like a gift being trusted with those confessions, and his sleep. I treasured it.

Nick returned the Rover at the Enterprise desk in the train terminal. I’d been oddly sentimental about it, which amused him. He’d gifted me another one of his crinkly-eyed smiles and we raced up the sidewalk to the tracks, laughing about the terrible job we were doing of staying dry.

He was right about not having time to sightsee. When I’d admitted as much as we boarded, he smiled, brushed a raindrop from my cheek and said, “Sorry, sweetheart.” Then he’d taken my bag and my hand, squeezing so hard my fingers were numb.

I looked around the sleeper car, feeling jittery like I’d just downed a few packets of sugar. My hands were shaking, but there were too many things to blame it on that I couldn’t decide how to make it stop.

For starters, the space was tiny, and Nick and I were sharing it.

This wasn’t like sharing the hotel room, which was practically a small apartment. Here, there was nowhere for him to go where I wouldn’t be able to feel his body heat or smell the rain on his T-shirt. Not that I was trying to avoid that. In fact, I was back to soaking up every bit of him I could.Before all of this ends.

Secondly, and even more jarring, the cabin number above the door read315. My arms broke out in goosebumps when I saw it and the cold from my wet clothes kept them there.

There were two seats by a window that would fold down into a bed, and a bunk that pulled down from the wall above it. I assumed that was where I’d be sleeping because Nick wasn’t fitting up there. I hung my bag on a hook and turned around, bumping into his chest.

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