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Closing her eyes, she told herself to get a grip. She wasn’t getting adivorce, for fuck’s sake. She had been on two dates—not even, really—with a male she was powerfully attracted to, who had a very bad past, through no fault of his own, and who had his mind scrambled at the moment. If she couldn’t keep herself together just because they hadn’t parted with a declaration of eternal love? Then she needed counseling.
Except maybe she should have stayed? But he’d seemed so stiff and uncomfortable. And there wasn’t another room to go into, other than the bath.
She glanced over her shoulder. Should she go back and try to talk to him?
If she could just find the right words…
Crap, maybe Bitty was right, and she really did need to work on herself. What had that tagline been? Resolve2Evolve? She could use a little evolution at the moment, thank you very much.
As she pictured herself going back to Luchas House and pretending Everything Was Just Great with the staff, she really wished that she could text her best friend to meet up at their real home. After two pints of ice cream and some ancientThe Officereruns together, probably she wouldn’t feel like her life was over.
She missed Bitty. A lot. And the fact that she couldn’t call the female and ask for advice about Nate really made Nalla feel like a shithead. Why had she thought she’d had all the answers? Who cared about some kind of social media program? Here Nalla herself was, standing in the snow out in the cold, while portions of a conversation she was never going to have with a male she really cared about were circling like vultures over the dead bodies of her previous sense of optimism and excitement.
Like she had any better answers for life’s problems than that guru…?
The sound of the cabin’s door opening behind her was a surprise, and as she turned around—
Nate was standing barefoot on the cabin’s stoop, and before she could say anything, he started striding toward her, through the snow.
“Oh, my God, your feet, you’ll get frostbite—”
“I’m sorry,” he said as he walked right up and put his arms around her.
There wasn’t even a hesitation on Nalla’s part. She grabbed on to his shoulders and held on tight.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said roughly. “This… is all I need right now.”
Closing her eyes, she turned her head so that her ear was over his heart. And as she listened to the steady beat, tears came, but she kept them to herself. Mostly.
Nate pulled back and cupped her face in his broad palms. “I want to see you again. Whenever you’re up for it. Nothing’s changed on my end.”
As his thumbs brushed her cheeks, she knew she was going to remember how he looked in this moment for the rest of her life, so vital, so beautiful in the darkness… a mystery she didn’t have to solve to accept. To love.
“Me, too,” she vowed. “This is a start, not an end.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I really have no idea what I’m doing.”
She laughed. “I’m in the woods, too. So we can be lost together, okay?”
“Together.”
The smile that came over his face made her feel like the sky was full of twinkling stars, and all of them were shining just for the pair of them—and that was true, on the other side of the dampening cloud cover.
Which, just like an awkward moment between two people at the start of a relationship, would pass.
And then Nate grew serious. “I’m promising you, right now, that I won’t let anything come between us. Not even myself, okay? I haven’t wanted to confront my shit, because I haven’t needed to—but my past is not going to cost us a future. Deal?”
“Deal.” She lifted her lips. “As long as we can kiss on it.”
It was a request she did not have to make twice, and when they finally came up for air, she touched the side of his face and thought about how much she really didn’t want to leave.
“You could stay a little longer,” he murmured. “Plus… oh, my God, I have cold feet—and not in a relationship way. So I really might need some help getting back inside.”
“Well, what do you know… there’s no place I’d rather be. And no one I’d rather be with.”
On that note, she tucked herself under one of his arms and hitched a hold around his waist. As they started back for the cabin, he kissed the top of her head.
“At least it’s only a couple of yards and you don’t have to carry me all the way this time.”
