"Not the clearance," he said. "I wouldn't clear you again. But the—" He stopped. "The letting you matter part. I would do it again."
I didn't say anything.
"I've been—" He stopped again. Started differently. "I've been trying to find the correct professional framework for what this is. For what you are. For the last two years." He looked at his hands. "I don't have one."
"Nathan.”
"But I don't have one," he said again. "You don't fit in any of them. You never did. And I—" He stopped. "I stopped trying to find one," he said. "Somewhere around the pizza place. I stopped trying to find the framework and I just—" He looked up. "You're it," he said. "That's all I have. You're it."
It wasn'tI love you.
It was so much more Nathan thanI love you.
"Yeah," I said. My voice came out slightly wrong. "Okay."
"Okay," he said.
We looked at each other.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
"I know.”
Leo jumped onto the counter between us and sat down with the authority of an animal who had been patient long enough and had things to say.
Nathan reached over and scratched behind his ears.
We sat there for a moment in the kitchen.
"You haven't eaten," I said.
"I've been—"
"Tea is not food, Nathan."
"It was a substantial—"
"Do not say substantial tea," I said. "I will order food."
"You're supposed to be resting."
"I can rest and order food simultaneously," I said. "I'm very talented."
He looked at me for a long moment. Nathan Cross, with the leave of absence and the review and his parents having just been in this apartment and me having said things to his father that could not be unsaid, looking at me across his kitchen island.
The wall that used to be up between us was nowhere to be seen.
It hadn't been since I walked in.
"Pizza?" I said.
Something settled in his expression.
"Yes," he said.
"Okay," I said.
I ordered pizza.
