Page 92 of Nerdelicious
We both need to stand on our own, I think. For now.
“You’re so wise for one so young.”
I’ll be a train ride away.
“Which is so much better than a plane ride and hours of driving.”
We stay up half the night catching up on everything. We’ve been communicating since I left, but not as much recently—since, apparently, he was planning a cross-country move. We touch and talk. I tell him stories about my coworkers, he tells me stories from Blue Falls and what I’ve missed since I left. There are sexy times in between when we need a break from the talking and the touching and caressing brings us to the point of no return.
It’s early in the morning, nearly sunrise, when I show him my “patio” so we can look up at the stars.
“I see one!” I point at one glimmering light in the sky. “Oh wait. That’s a plane.” I squint. “Maybe a drone?” I grin up at Beast. “Not quite like home, huh?”
His arms wrap around me and his voice is in my ear, hushed and raspy, but pure. “You are home.”
Epilogue
“One thingI’ve learned is no one sticks by you like your friends. Especially here.”
–Overheard at Comic-Con
Five months later...
“I want to do the polar bear plunge.” Grace bounces around us on her toes, feet thudding against the wooden planks beneath our feet. Her cheeks are pink from the wind, blonde hair smothered under a bright pink beanie Fred bought her this morning.
“You want to jump in that freezing cold water?” Fred asks.
“Sure.”
“The plunge is on the first.” Fred’s hand squeezes mine, the motion intimate even through our gloves. “And you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Have you ever done it?” Grace asks, tone challenging.
“Uh, no, I avoid frostbite.”
Grace rolls her eyes and skips ahead of us on the nearly empty boardwalk. “Maybe it will snow!” she calls over her shoulder.
“I wish it would,” Fred tells me. “Then she could see her first snow and maybe her flight would get cancelled and she could stay a couple more days.”
I squint up into the bright sunshine. It’s cold, the breeze biting, but there are no clouds in sight. To our left, the Atlantic Ocean crashes onto an expanse of sand.
Grace has never seen the snow. We hoped she’d get her chance during this first trip to the city, but so far it’s been nothing but sun. Cold, but no weather. She arrived a day after Christmas, and we had our own little holiday celebration. Snow aside, we’ve packed in as much as we could into the three-day visit, and now we’ve only got one more night.
“We should get some blintzes from Gourmanoff while we’re here,” Fred says.
What about dinner?I sign.
Fred lifts her brows at me with a grimace. “You really want to eat my mom’s food?”
I grin and lean down to kiss the corner of her frowning mouth, turning the grimace into a smile. “She might surprise you.” Talking is easier than it was six months ago. But not effortless.
“You’re an optimist. And braver than I will ever be. I guess we should head back to the B train anyway if we’re going to get to Park Slope on time.”
She calls out for Grace, who is hanging on to a railing up ahead, looking out at the beach and water. She skips back and we walk together to the subway, Grace and Fred chatting about various tricks to make it look like you’re eating when you’re really just pushing your food around your plate.
The train ride is about forty minutes, Grace sitting between us, chattering the whole way about the New York Hall of Science—a science and technology museum in Queens we took her to yesterday.
Fred’s mother, who insists I call her Helen, greets us in the entry of the brownstone.
