Nathan made more tea.
Leo stayed on the counter between us and purred.
I was not going back to my apartment tonight.
Neither of us said that out loud.
We didn't need to.
29
Iwas in love with Nathan Cross.
I figured this out on a Tuesday, on his couch, with Leo on my head. The figuring out was less like a revelation and more like finally reading the last word of a sentence that had been going on for two years.
Oh, I thought.That.
That's what that was.
Honestly? Being in love with him explained a lot of things I had been filing under other categories. The hall outside the breakfast room in Toronto. The way I'd stopped going to Broderick's. The way I'd saidI owe him one more shiftin a tunnel and meant it about Dylan but also meant it about Nathan, had been meaning things about Nathan for so long that I'd stopped being able to tell which things were about which person.
The way I'd said things to his father in his living room that I had not planned to say and had not been able tonotsay.
I was in love with Nathan Cross.
Nathan, who had been watching me since the first game.
I was in love with him.
Leo adjusted on my head and purred.
"You knew," I said, to Leo.
Leo said nothing. Because he was a cat.
"You've known for a while, haven’t you?" I asked him.
Nathan appeared in the doorway.
He'd been working out. This was evident from the state of him—black hair damp and slightly wrecked, gray shirt with a darker patch down the center, breathing still evening out from whatever he'd been doing in there that wasn't dealing with his feelings but was adjacent to dealing with his feelings. He had a water bottle in one hand.
He looked at me on his couch with Leo on my head.
I couldn’t help but watch him.
All six-foot-one of him, post-workout, in the morning light, looking at me with those blue eyes and the jaw and the general situation of him, which I had been in close proximity to for two years and had apparently been in love with for some portion of that time without fully processing it until approximately eight minutes ago.
Soon,I thought.Very soon.
"Talking to the cat?" he said.
"Consulting the cat," I said. "There's a difference."
He came in and dropped onto the other end of the couch, which he did not usually do post-workout, which meant he had decided being near me was more important than his usual routine, which was a lot of information to be receiving before nine a.m.
Leo considered relocating. Stayed on my head.
"Nathan," I said.
