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“Nathan?” My voice hitched and was too quiet for him to hear, but God, I didn’t know if I had it in me to speak any louder.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t know if I could do this. I just knew I had to. I couldn’t know and let him forget.
I moved closer, close enough I wouldn’t need to raise my voice. Close enough I could hold his hand or wrap my arms around him if I needed to.
“Nathan,” I repeated at his back.
He closed the cabinet door and stirred the sauce. “It’s fine. I don’t need it. It’s good without the added heat.”
“Can you stop for a second?”
“It’s almost ready. Let me just put the garlic bread in…”
I wrapped my hand around Nathan’s elbow and held on to him when he attempted to step around me. “Nathan, stop,” I pleaded. “Please…”
He looked at me then. At my eyes as they watered. Then at my hand on his arm. My grip was severe.
“What?” he asked, lifting his gaze. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Your phone…Davis texted you.” I pressed the device into his hand. “I think you need to call your dad, Nathan.”
“I’ll call him later—I’m busy.” His eyes jumped between mine. “What’s going on? Why do you look like you’re about to cry? What the hell did Davis say?”
“It’s July twenty-ninth,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a long moment. “Okay…so it’s July twenty-ninth.” He shook his head, laughing a little. He was lost. He didn’t know…“Is that all he said? It’s also Thursday. I’m not sure why that’s something he thought I—”
Nathan blinked once, and then rapidly in succession, as if someone had just given him a hard shake. His lips parted as he gulped in a breath. There was suddenly so much shock and hurt in his eyes. And his breathing…It was labored now and so much louder than mine could have ever been.
“How do you know?” he asked quietly.
“Davis. His text…Your dad reached out to him. He was worried when you didn’t answer your phone.” I watched Nathan raise the device between us and pull up his messages. “I’m sorry I read it. It just popped up on the screen. I…What do you need right now? Do you need me to do something?”
“Like what?”
“I can call your parents, if you want. I don’t know…” My eyes burned with the threat of tears. “I don’t know what you need, Nathan. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing.” His voice was gruff, thick with emotion, as he stuffed his phone into the pocket of his shorts. “I don’t need you to do anything. I just—” He peered over my head at the island. “Um, let me just…get this garlic bread in.”
I planted my hands on his chest. “Nathan, dinner can wait.”
“No, it can’t.” He spoke with finality, and he was holding on to my wrists now and tugging, lowering my arms between us. “Let me do this, Jenna. Everything else is ready.”
“Don’t you want to talk first?”
“No.” He moved past me then. “No, I don’t want to talk. I want to finish making you dinner. That’s the only thing I want to do right now.”
I plastered myself against the counter as Nathan slid the tray of garlic bread into the oven and set the timer for five minutes. He stayed facing away. He took the sauce off the heat, wiped the counter down with a towel, and stacked our plates.
I watched him move on autopilot. That had to be what he was doing…Nothing else explained how he was staying so focused right now. And I wanted to make him stop. I wanted to reach out and hold on to him so badly, but I didn’t.
Finally he had nothing left to do and stood still, flattening his hands on the granite. His back to me and his head lowered.
I moved to him then, hugging him from behind. “Nathan.”
His body went stiff the moment my arms linked around his waist. A reaction he couldn’t help or hide from me. We both felt it. Before I could ask or Nathan could explain, the oven timer sounded.
“Let me get that,” he said, slipping away from me.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach as Nathan pulled the sheet tray from the oven and set it on the stovetop. The edges of the bread were brown and crisp. He turned the oven off, then glanced at the sauce and the plates stacked on the counter as he tugged out his phone.
“I need to give my parents a call. You can start eating.”
“We can wait for you.”
Nathan shook his head as he brought the phone to his ear. “I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he said, moving past me.
“Of course.”
He wouldn’t rush this phone call. He shouldn’t rush it.
I felt helpless as I watched Nathan ascend the stairs. I would’ve done anything for him in that moment, anything he needed, and even though eating the meal Nathan had prepared seemed incredibly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, I knew I could at least get the girls fed. Taking care of Marley was something I could absolutely do for him.
