“Okay.” He grins— the real one, the full one, the one that has been causing problems for my cardiovascular system since day one. “Denver first. Marriage is a Q2 conversation.”
“That’s a very architectural way to approach a relationship.”
“Phase one, phase two.” He pulls me back in. “I’m a planner.”
“You burned your grill on purpose.”
“For content. Completely different context.” His arms settle around me easy and warm and I rest my chin on his shoulder and look at the water over his arm and feel… full. Simply, unexpectedly, completely full.
“I’m going to tell Maya tonight,” he says, quieter now. “About the procedure.”
“Good.”
“Will you be there? When I call her.”
“I’ll be right here,” I say.
He exhales. Long, slow, the way a person breathes when they’ve been holding something for a long time and finally don’t have to.
We stay at the railing until the copper goes rose and the rose goes gray and the first stars show up over the water doing what stars have always done. They’re so completely indifferent to the small human things happening beneath them and somehow, because of that, making those things feel more real.
Cruz takes my picture at some point in the evening.
Not for content. His phone goes straight back into his pocket, no caption, no post. He just looks at it for a moment with an expression he doesn’t try to moderate and then looks at me and then at the picture again, like he’s checking that the two match.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He puts his phone away. “Just keeping it.”
I think about a thirty-four year old man with a sketchbook and a heart that needs a small repair and two point threemillion strangers who know the performed version of him and absolutely no idea about the real one.
The one who slows down when he runs past you.
The one who leaves wine on a railing without asking for anything back, who asks before he kisses you and means it every time.
I think about driving eight hours through Nebraska for this person.
I’m going to do it. Obviously. I decided approximately three days ago.
Mia calls at nine.
“How’s the vacation?” she asks.
I’m sitting on Cruz’s deck. He’s inside making tea —correctly, no fire involved— and through the window I can see him moving around the kitchen with the ease of a person comfortable in small spaces, comfortable in his own company, comfortable with me in a way that still catches me off guard with its completeness.
“Good,” I tell her. “Really good.”
A pause. Mia has radar too… she gets it from me. “Mom. What happened.”
“I met someone.”
Silence. Then, at a volume that makes me pull the phone from my ear: “Mom!”
“He’s lovely,” I say. “He’s also thirty-four, so prepare yourself.”
The sound she makes is indescribable. I’m going to treasure it.
“Cara is going to absolutely lose her mind,” Mia says.
