"I can see that."
"And a menu I can read."
The corner of his mouth. The full version of his smile, a rare sight. "When do we leave?"
"Thursday," I said.
"That's two days from now."
"Yep."
"You booked non-refundable tickets for Thursday."
"First class."
"Wesley."
"Nathan."
He looked at the water bottle.
"Okay," he said. “Sure.”
Leo purred on my head.
I looked at Nathan Cross on his end of the couch—damp hair, water bottle, morning light, the whole impossible situation of him—and thought:I'm in love with youand thought:soonand thought:yeah, okay, Thursday.
Thursday came.
I threw things into a bag while Nathan had what I can only describe as a cube situation happening on the bed: tiny mesh bags, organized by category, which I had not known was a thing people did and which was extremely Nathan.
I was in love with him.
He stared at my bag for a moment.
"You don't have—"
"It's fine."
"Your sunscreen isn't—"
"Nathan."
He went and got his own sunscreen and put it in my bag without saying anything else about it.
I was in love with him.
I scrolled through the movie options on the seat back on the plane for forty minutes while Nathan read a book beside me. At some point his hand found mine on the armrest between us. He didn't look up from the book. He just found it.
I was in love with him.
We landed somewhere warm.
The air outside the terminal had a quality that was the direct opposite of Boston in every way that mattered.
I was in love with him.
The hotel was small. Nathan had researched it, of course he had, and it was exactly what the research had promised, which was quiet and warm and far enough from anything loud to feel like it existed outside of the usual rules. Our room had a window that opened. Nathan checked the latch. Organized his toiletries in a row on the bathroom counter.
