“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she tells me again. And I finally let myself pull her into my arms.
“Neither do I,” I admit. “But it feels kind of nice, doesn’t it? It feels a bit like letting go of all the old baggage. Part of me likes not knowing what’s going to happen next.”
“It’s terrifying.” She laughs, her body hitching against mine.
“Where’s thatNora takes things too farattitude?”
“I only take them too far when it doesn’t matter.”
“I remember your protest about the dress code. That mattered.”
She leans back enough to look at me. “Not as much as you.”
“I’m grateful I mean more to you than a tank top. And that only deepens my conviction that we need to see this through. We’re doing all of it. The Scooby-Doo investigation with Pansy. Saving your brewery. You can count on it. When I make up my mind about something, I don’t sway from it. I can’t. They call them fixations for a reason.”
She pulls away, and for a moment, I think she’s going to send me packing. Everything that’s spun up between us will come undone, and all that will tie us together is the relationship between our parents.
But instead she looks up into my eyes, then lifts onto her toes and kisses me.
“I think I’d like you to take me home,” she says.
“To your apartment? Sure. I?—”
“I want to go to your house. I want to see Cookie.”
The cup is definitely half full tonight, dammit. Because Nora just called my house her home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NORA
I’ve spent the last several days mired in self-hatred, wondering if every decision I’ve made over the past month was driven by self-interest. Wondering if maybe Pansy reallyisin love with José.
Then I got another text from her this evening:
Cormac made eight figures off that tech he sold. He could definitely help you with your bathrooms, babe.
So, yeah, this isn’t just a me thing. She definitely sucks. I dared to show the text to José, hoping it would be enough to convince him to drop her, especially after the way she acted the other night. He didn’t seem happy about it, but he made excuses for her, repeating that she was stressed because her business isn’t popping off the way she’d hoped.
Honestly, he’s acting like a real dumbass, and it’s reminding me a lot of the way my mom reacted whenever my dad failed to come home for dinner—or, on one memorable occasion, three days.
You know what he’s like when he’s stressed. He disappears into himself.
She said the same thing when he ate the dinners she made without thanking her. Or stayed hunched over his cell phone at holiday dinners. Or forgot to attend the birthday celebration I’d arranged for her since he’d done shit for her special day.
While I understood why she’d wanted to believe he disappeared into himself—rather than into other women—it didn’t make her self-deceptions any less painful to witness.
Now, the same thing’s happening with José.
It willneverhappen to me. I never want to be on either side of that twisted equation—the woman who keeps hoping she’ll be loved back, or the woman who keeps taking and taking, until there’s nothing left.
Sure, I dated Jonah, the two-timing jerk. But I went into that mess knowing he was a slick, charming asshole. I figured there was no harm in dating him, because there was no danger I’d fall in love with someone like that.
Cormac’s different, though.
I trust him.
Iknowhe’s a good person.
