"Yes."
"Do you have something to say to me?"
His eyes went to the book. Then to the water. Then back to me.
"I love you too," he said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," I repeated.
"It's been fairly evident," he said. "For some time."
"It has? For how long?"
"Probably two years."
I sat with that for a second. Nathan Cross, in his slightly crooked hat, water bottle in the cupholder, having just told me he'd been in love with me for probably two years with the same tone he used to report clinical findings.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," he said.
He went back to his book.
After a moment, I reached over and straightened his hat.
He didn't look up.
But the corner of his mouth did the thing.
The water did its thing.
I was smiling so hard it hurt and there was nobody to perform it for and it was just my face doing something true in the sun on a beach somewhere that wasn't Boston.
I was in love with Nathan Cross.
He had saidobviously.
I was going to be thinking about that for a very long time.
30
Four days left.
Four days of vacation remaining and I was in love with Nathan Cross and the sun was doing its thing and the water was right there and I had approximately ninety-six hours to be a person who relaxed and I was going to use every single one of them.
This was the plan. This was a good plan. I had never in my life successfully executed this plan, but Nathan was here and Nathan had books and sunscreen at medically precise intervals and a hat he'd researched, and if Nathan Cross could figure out how to be still then Wesley Morrison could absolutely figure out how to be still.
We were going to relax. Right now. Immediately. Starting now.
Neither of us was particularly good at doing nothing.
Nathan's version of doing nothing looked like three books in two days and sunscreen applied at medically precise intervals.
My version of doing nothing had historically looked like Broderick's four nights a week and bar tables and the transaction and fifteen thousand people telling me I was worth it. Give themthe moment, get the noise back. Keep moving. Never sit still long enough for the quiet to arrive.
The quiet had always felt like something to outrun.
It didn't feel like that here.
