I open the door, bemused by how relieved I am to be barked at, and step inside—nearly stumbling when I see him.
Cormac is exiting the kitchen with Cookie at his heels. He’s wearing a pair of corduroy pants, a white T-shirt, and his new glasses, which are identical to the last. He must have gotten his hair trimmed while he was away. Even though it looks good, I feel robbed.
I reach back and slam the door shut, and then I’m running to him, so fast I nearly tumble over a ridge in the carpet that I almost certainly put there.
I tumble into his chest, my palms flexing against his solidity, wanting to capture him. “You’re home. You came home early.”
He smiles as he lifts his hand to my cheek. “I wanted to see you.”
“Too bad.” I take his glasses off, and he grabs them from my hand and tosses them blindly.
At this rate, he’ll need to replace them every week.
I lift a hand to his face and trace the healing wounds around his eye, which is a mostly normal color now.
“You’re okay.”
“So they tell me. But I barely made it through three weeks without you. I missed you.” He cups my chin with his hand, lifting me to him, and studies my face for a few long seconds before lowering his head to kiss me.
The kernel of hope in my chest wants to explode. It wants to go supernova, but he said he needed to talk.
Maybe this is just aGoodbye, I’m moving to San Franciscokiss.
If it is, though, I’m going to make the most of it. I get up on my toes and press into him, burying a hand in his hair as I kiss him back with everything I have. He groans into my mouth and pulls me closer.
“God, I missed you so much,” he says again, nearly speaking it into my lips.
“I missed you too.” The words feel raw, but being honest with him is part of deserving him.
I swallow. “I made you something.”
“You did?” he asks, his eyebrows lifting.
“It’s stupid.”
He runs his fingertips over my cheek. “I can manage my own expectations.”
“Okay, but you’ve been warned.”
Feeling like a genuine idiot, I take the robotic arm I built outof the hall closet I stored it in. It took me over a month to finish it. I’m honestly not sure it has any utility, but I wanted to do something that would require real effort. I’d started it before he told me about the robot he built in high school, and it felt even more important to finish afterward.
“It’s really stupid,” I say again, feeling my cheeks flush as I bring it over and set it on the coffee table. “It’s like one of those claw machine things, and everyone knows they don’t work well. But I thought it would only be fair if?—”
“You built me a robot?” he asks, his eyes bright and full of interest.
Cookie, who has been very curious about this undertaking for weeks, jumps up and perches her front paws on the coffee table. Cormac clicks his tongue, and to my amazement, she backs off.
His gaze settles back on me. “You really did this for me?”
“It’s dumb. Like I said. But I wanted you to—” I swallow the old need to act like it’s no big deal. That nothing’s a big deal, because if you go to a lot of trouble for someone, they might think they own you. “I wanted to build you something useful, but it turns out making robots is really hard for people who aren’t geniuses, and there was a lot of trial and error. It sort of works, though, and I guess I’m proud of that.”
“Show me.”
I set about making my robotic arm work, using the remote control, although the only thing it manages to do is pick up—maul—a paperback book that I left on the table. It still feels like a victory, though, and we both cheer it on together.
He wraps his arms around me and kisses me, holding me like he doesn’t want to let go. “I love it. Thank you.”
“You said you wanted to talk,” I say, the words coming out a little shaky, “but there’s somewhere particular I want to do it.”
